


mixtape for sunday

by outwardbound93



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon Compliant, Drabble Collection, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2018-08-12 19:38:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 48
Words: 109,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7946599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outwardbound93/pseuds/outwardbound93
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything happens eventually, Harry thinks, studying Niall’s profile in the dark. Maybe in one of those infinities Niall kisses him.</p><p>(all my short fics cross-posted from <a href="http://niallspringsteen.tumblr.com/">tumblr</a>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. burning down the clock

**Author's Note:**

> the fics are posted in reverse order, with the newest ones at the beginning and the oldest ones at the end.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an american au; the fellas are brought back to their hometown to attend their hs football coach’s funeral, and find things (and each other) not quite as they left them (narry)

Niall takes a bite of funeral sandwich even though, as a rule, he knows it’ll be dry and flavorless. Why is that?, he wonders. It’s like there’s some unspoken rule among southern families that the good food is to be postponed till after the funeral service; day of, it’s bland turkey sandwiches and wilted garden salads with crumbly helpings of sheet cake or cobbler. Like now that the dead aren’t eating well, neither can the rest of them.

A stiff, sweltering breeze rustles the paper tablecloths and teases at Niall’s fringe. He’d forgotten what the humidity in Texas was like. Walking out of the airport night before last, he felt the air like a thick, wet punch to the lungs; he still feels like he’s trying to breathe with his head inside a canvas bag.

The drive from the airport to his little hometown had revealed but hints in the dark of what was unsettlingly clear in the morning light: the old Tastee-Freeze on the corner of Elm and 7th Avenue had finally been bought out by Dairy Queen, who’d gone out of business and left behind a shadowed, empty shell of bright fluorescent light and shiny laminate tiles, though Niall would bet that shop inside still smelled of bleach, burning oil, and maraschino cherries. The elementary school got a new facade, though it seemed already to be peeling off of the old one like the brickwork was melting under the broad Texas heat. The YMCA he used to go swimming at with Greg had been demolished, and a park erected in its wake; a new state of the art YMCA stood, mostly empty, on the other end of town. It looked like a raft left adrift in the midst of so many empty black parking spaces.

Even Coach Higgins’s house wasn’t exactly the same. The rotting wooden trellis sheathed thickly with sweet honeysuckle had finally been taken out of his front yard, and there was a brand new flatscreen TV in his entertainment center where for years there had been an ancient box TV whose screen flickered and buzzed in the rain.

If Coach Higgins were here and alive to taste his own reception’s offerings, he’d whip the top off a sandwich, spare a cautious glance - his wife hated him doing this - and then upend a bottle of barbecue sauce all over it. Niall pretended to gag and shy away with the rest of them when the coach came around offering some of his “special blend” - a homemade mix of store-bought sauce, apple cider vinegar, reduced red wine, and brown sugar - but the room seems strangely drab and textureless without its pungent odor stinging the insides of his nostrils. 

In fairness, he wasn’t bad at the grill. Coach Higgins used to host an annual team barbecue right at the end of summer, on the cusp of a new school year, when the leaves would be baked so deep green and rubbery that they hardly even burned on the pitiful little bonfires the football team tried to build up. Niall can still taste those steeped summer days: lush green grass, grill smoke wafting into the air, blacktop baking under the boiling sun, and the sticky sweetness of those cheap popsicles Louis’s mom always kept stashed in the freezer for her kids, and her kids’ friends, whom she pretty much considered her own children too.

Johannah gone, and now the coach too. A lump forms unexpectedly in Niall’s throat, and he tries to swallow it down with his dry bit of sandwich.

“You’ll be wanting some of the coach’s special blend with that, right?” someone asks. They clap their hand down on Niall’s shoulder and he jumps guiltily. He turns to find Liam stood behind him, his broad palm settled familiarly over Niall’s shoulder like they’re about to form up into a huddle under the bright spotlights and deafening roar of the football field again.

He still looks like he could tuck a ball under his arm and run clear from one end of the football field to another, which is saying better than either Niall or Louis, whose bad joints and criminally bad diet have benched them, respectively. The lines by Liam’s eyes deepen into furrows when he smiles, and his eyes disappear, and they can both pretend he wasn’t about to get teary. “That stuff was godawful,” Liam says warmly.

“Mind your manners, asshole,” Niall laughs. “We’re adults now.” Then he remembers he’s in the house of God, or at least at a reception at the VFW, which is probably, like, God’s back door propped open with something more than a five-gallon bucket of chicken feed, and he swallows down a bubble of hysterical laughter and amends himself. “Er, I mean, butt…head.”

Liam looks utterly delighted. “I take it back,” he says. “You’re still ten years old, and you look it, and I’m going to tell your mom.”

“If you tell Maura Horan, I’ll -” Niall’s saved from thinking up a satisfactory threat by Louis throwing himself across Niall’s back. He slides nearly to the floor by the time Niall gets his wits about him and loops his arms around his chest to pull him back up. He smells like booze, and a flash of annoyance passes through Niall before he tells himself to get it together.

Louis stayed strong all through the viewing yesterday, and the speech he gave at the gravesite this morning had even Niall wiping away his tears. Nobody else stayed in town after graduation, but Louis did, serving faithfully at the coach’s side while he worked on his teaching certificate.

So Niall just says, “Steady, bro,” and hefts Louis up.

“Thanks, Nialler,” Louis smiles blearily up at him. His eyes are red-rimmed and swollen, though Niall doesn’t remember seeing him cry, which meant he saved it till he got home last night to do it in private; Niall feels guilty for being annoyed with him at all. “You’re a good guy, you know.”

“He knows, Lou,” Liam says. He exchanges a worried look with Niall. Mercifully, he takes Louis’s other arm. “How ya doing there, bud?”

“Liam,” Louis sighs, soft enough that only Niall can hear him with Louis’s mouth pressed right up against Niall’s ear. Or so Niall hopes. Sophia must be somewhere nearby, a beautiful sylph of a woman in a black wrap dress whose hug had been so soft and gentle that Niall nearly started crying on the spot.

Their wedding had been a beautiful affair in the city; Niall remembers it less than the pictures of the reception after. Unfortunately for him, every potential employer doing his due diligence has prime access to pictures of Niall sat on his friend’s shoulders with a bottle of beer in his hand and his shirt fully unbuttoned. It’s, well. There have been worse pictures.

The last thing either Liam or Sophia needs is Louis rekindling the tinders of his one-sided feelings for Liam. Which reminds Niall, “Where’d Harry wander off to? I thought he was bringing us punch.” If Harry was here right now, at least Niall would have someone to trade uneasy looks with.

They’d survived junior and sophomore year, proms and college applications, Harry’s first (and second, and third) car accidents, mono, and a whole host of other shit just by sharing a look that said, You’re seeing this, too? Like as long as there was someone else to bear witness it couldn’t be bad beyond imagination. Real bad, as that time they blew out a tire on the way to the final game of the season up in the hill country without any reception, but not too bad. It was then, and felt now, a fine but important distinction.

“You know how he is,” Liam shrugs. Louis sloughs off his shoulder, flattening Niall.

“Here,” Niall says, spotting an opportunity to separate them. “Louis, why don’t we get a cup of tea for you? Or a sandwich? You must be hungry,” he says firmly. Without giving Louis time to argue, he says, “Here,” and more or less hauls Louis across the VFW, whose paper banners rustle in the faint breeze stirred up by the ancient, creaking ceiling fan. He dumps Louis in a plastic folding chair and rustles up a plate with a little bit of everything on it: a flavorless sandwich, a scoop of melted fruit salad, a firm bread roll, and a scoop of salty green beans. Then he summons the nerve to ask, “Where’s El, Lou?”

Louis doesn’t answer. He holds the plate in one hand, and a clear plastic fork in the other. He sits hunched over the plate, his face frighteningly calm. Then, “Don’t worry about it, Nialler.” He tilts his head back so that Niall can get a good, long view of his prematurely lined face. The years have changed him as surely as the town itself, and Niall wishes suddenly, ferociously, that he could grab hold of the intervening years and wind them back up so that they could weave a new tapestry of the present out of all the things that caused it. But he can’t. “Where is she?” Louis agrees philosophically, then shrugs, mechanically feeds himself.

Niall excuses himself to get a drink of water, but he swerves halfway to the barrels of sweet and unsweet tea and water set atop the bar in bright orange Gatorade casks and darts into the gent’s room instead. The gentlemen’s cowboy boot heels clack clack just as soothingly as the ladies’ high heels on the wooden ballroom floor outside. He splashes some water on his face and curls his fingers around the cool porcelain sink. His reflection stares back at him, ruddy-cheeked, in the foggy mirror. Niall shakes his head, telling himself to shake it off and get back onto the field. It isn’t till he’s throwing his wadded up paper towels into the trash that it’s still Higgins’ voice coaching him through what to do next.

Niall dithers on the threshold of the toilets. He could go back to Louis, but the look on his careworn face fills Niall with a special flavor of guilt. While he debates, a familiar voice carries down the hall. Niall would recognize that slow, honeyed drawl anywhere. He slips his hands into his pockets and edges down the hall, toward the reception area, where the book for service attendees lies wide open next to a #1 Coach! mug full of pens. Harry gestures wide when he talks, his rings catching in the light. His curly hair brushes the collar of his jacket and tickles the corner of his jaw. Some essential tension leaks out of Niall at the sight of him; even if everything else is different, at least Harry’s the same.

A smattering of rain droplets darkens the shoulders of Harry’s sleek suit jacket, and Niall tunes into the first soft plink-plinks of rain hitting the tin roof overhead. With any luck, a fresh rainshower will burst the humidity like a balloon. Niall waits patiently while Harry winds up a long-winded story about a movie Niall knows for a fact he hasn’t seen and turns from the smiling, utterly confused elderly woman. He finds Niall leaned against the doorway. His face breaks into a wide smile, the kind of smile that doesn’t seem possible until it’s directed straight at you, and then it could be the only thing that exists for all anything else matters. Niall’s heart goes tight.

“There you are,” says Harry, shaking his hair out of his face.

“There I am?” Niall repeats. “I’m not the one who went AWOL on a punch run.”

“It’s just,” Harry starts, Niall rolling his eyes and steering them both out of the way of a procession of large floral arrangements on its way in, “I was going to do that, I swear, but then I ran into Betti there, and we got to talking…”

“I know,” Niall sighs.

Harry curls his fingers around Niall’s forearm either to keep him from moving away, or to keep him from heading back toward the main room, Niall doesn’t know. “Louis?” he guesses.

“You think he still has a thing for Liam?” Niall hardly dares to voice the thought aloud. He ducks his head down, Harry shuffling closer to hear. His curls tickle Niall’s nose and forehead. If Niall closed his eyes, he could easily imagine he was sat at the back of seventh period pre-calculus, or sharing a cigarette on his tiny poured concrete back porch.

“Yeah,” Harry says. “And they say you can’t go home again,” he grins crookedly.

Niall’s cheeks go warm without explanation, so he clears his throat. “We better get back.”

“Ten years since we left,” Harry muses, “how do you think they survived without us?”

Niall laughs. The reception winds down early; none of the elderly folks like driving past dark, and most of the young people - Coach Higgins’ former students, and their spouses - have kids and homes to get back to. Well, most of them do, anyhow.

“Y’all wanna get drinks at the bar across the road?” Harry suggests. He’s been on Louis duty for the better part of the afternoon, and Louis looks better than he had earlier. He still looks like he could use a good cry, though.

“Paddy’s?” Liam wrinkles his nose.

“Are you kidding me?” Niall asks. He loosens his tie. “We’re finally old enough to get through the door. Liam’s magic kidney regrew itself, hell yes we’re going.”

The four of them cross the street under drizzling rain. The sidewalk is pockmarked with weeds shooting up through cracks in the concrete. Niall spent last night in his childhood bedroom, and the sidewalk in front of his dad’s house that he used to ride his tricycle, scooter, then bike and rollerblades on had gone from freshly-poured and perfectly flat to heaving up and down as if from a massive earthquake. The feed store on the corner still smells of hay and livestock, and modern day is only visible on the Post Office in the form of a UPS Drop-Off Location ad on the big front window.

A waitress installs them in a booth in the back of the bar. Niall orders them a pitcher of beer and, since none of them have to drive home, shots. They can walk, or sleep it off in the park on the other end of the block. Harry actually studies the food menu, the absolute weirdo, his chin digging into Liam’s shoulder.

Louis lolls against the wall next to Niall, more or less restored to his former chaotic energy level. “I’m glad that day is over,” he admits. Then he shoots the end of his straw wrapper at Harry, whose eye he hits with unerring accuracy.

“Hey,” Harry drawls, making no move to defend himself.

They swap stories: Liam spent a few years riding the bench as a rookie before Sophia asked him to settle down, so now he works at an office with her dad. Louis’s got his teaching certs and was, up till just a few days ago, Higgins’ assistant coach. Harry changes jobs every six months or so, but right now he’s a special event coordinator for his college town’s public library. His favorite bit is storytime he does for the kids.

“And,” he says, “I’m writing a novel.”

“No, you’re not,” Louis snorts.

Harry shoots him a look. “Why not?” he demands.

“Since when have you been able to commit to anything long enough to finish it?” While Harry’s still spluttering, Liam and Louis start ticking off on their fingers, “There was that time you were going to make your own homemade candles - half-burnt seashells everywhere, I don’t think so. Then you were going to go on a fruit diet for a week. You didn’t even last a day. Then there was that time you were going to go to art school to be a painter. How many paintings did he make, Liam?”

Liam holds up his thumb and forefinger in an O and mouths, “Zero.”

“Alright,” Harry says, crossing his arms over his chest and slumping in his seat. “I get it, I get it.”

They have a few more drinks, and then a few more. Louis moves on from taking out his grief on Harry to gazing longingly at Liam, only to look away when he looks Louis’s direction, Louis’s fingers curled tightly around the handle of his glass.

Niall’s cheeks feel warm. He lost his suit jacket, and his tie, and pushed his sleeves up past his elbows. Still, he mouths, “Outside?” at Harry, who nods gratefully, his hair flopping into his face. The drizzle has developed into a steady rain that pools in the potholes on the blacktop. In the dark, in the rain, even their familiar hometown looks strange and even dangerous.

Harry and Niall huddle together under the pub’s little overhang. Niall cups his hands around a cigarette and lights up. He takes a deep drag, and then he offers Harry a hit.

“No, thanks,” Harry says. “I just came out for the company.”

“Yeah?” Niall smiles, inordinately pleased. “Shitty circumstances, I know, but. It’s good to see you again, Styles.”

Harry cozies up to Niall like a pleased cat, his sweet smile leaking out like sunshine through the crack under the door. “I missed you,” Harry says. “Is that weird to say? We haven’t seen each other in, like, five years? Six? But I did. I do.”

“Nah,” Niall says. He clears his throat. “I did, too. Miss you, I mean.” He casts about for a change of topic. “Are you really writing a book?” Harry nods. “Am I in it?”

Harry cocks his head. “Depends,” he says. He’s so close that Niall can smell the beer on his breath, and mints, too. “Do you want to be?”

“I don’t think that’s how that works,” Niall laughs.

“No,” Harry agrees. “It’d be a modern novel, anyway. Modern novels don’t have people like you in them.”

Niall takes another drag off his cigarette for something to do. He feels strangely unsettled. Harry’s gaze hits him like a laserbeam, or maybe a tractor beam; for the first in the forever they’ve known each other, Niall wonders what he thinks of him. “What do you mean?” he asks finally.

“Good people,” Harry explains.  ****His fingers curl around Niall’s bicep just above his elbow. Niall can’t help but steal a glance at the way Harry’s tanned, smooth skin contrasts with the starched white of Niall’s shirt, and then he wonders what on earth he’s thinking.

Carefully, inevitably, Harry’s hand slides up, curling around the back of Niall’s neck, and then he trails his fingers down till they twine around Niall’s. Their foreheads touch, and then their noses brush. It’s not strictly new, the way they’re touching, but it’s not entirely familiar, either. 

This close, Harry’s face is one big blur, but his voice sounds bashful. “I was thinking,” Harry plows on. “It might be nice to stick around for a little while. You know, work on my book, keep an eye on Louis, and my mom. Liam’s thinking about it, too - says he and Sophia want to start a family, and both his sisters are still here, so.” 

“Suburbia’s less expensive than the city,” Niall throws in, nodding inanely. He wants to pinch himself.

“You could come back, too,” Harry says in a rush. “Just for a bit. Just for a few days, or a week. Or longer, if you want.” He pulls back with his eyes all scrunched up like he’s worried about what Niall’s face will tell him. Harry lets out a shaky laugh. “You’re still the best friends I’ve ever had.” 

“Yeah,” Niall whispers, his voice hoarse. No promises, but “Maybe,” he allows, Harry’s fingers tightening briefly around his before he lets go. 


	2. like a river runs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> canon compliant slightly future fic; harry needs some help with his second album, and niall still can't find it in himself to say no.

Niall knows he’s made a mistake the moment the words spill out of his mouth, but he’s not quick enough to snatch them out of the air and put them back where they belong. He’s also not fast enough to close his eyes to the wounded expression on Harry’s face, or the way his jaw drops a little with surprise, or the way even his hands go lax. If he’d been holding something, surely he would have dropped it. That’s maybe the worst thing, Niall supposes: that even after all this time, Harry thought better of him. Them. Whatever.

A beat too late, Niall shuts his eyes. He can’t see Harry visibly collect himself, but he can imagine it perfectly well, like a film unspooling on the backs of his eyelids: Harry tugs fruitlessly at the stretched-out sleeves of his jumper, and his posture shifts so that his shoulders hunch a little more. His spine curves like a giant palm slowly curling its fingers in. He tips his chin down toward his chest to comb his hair into his face.

“Harry…” Niall tries. He opens his eyes and finds Harry just as he expected him, with the exception of his fringe, which is too short to hang in his eyes. Niall’s not sure how to continue. He’s never been much of a liar and if there’s one thing Bobby Horan disapproves of more than lying, it’s apologizing for the truth. “I didn’t mean to say that. I don’t want to hurt you, ‘s not like I’m angry with you -”

“It’s fine,” Harry says stiffly. Strange, Niall’s always thought, that the more defensive he feels the more cooked he looks, and the more starched his voice gets. Harry’s all sorts of twisted around and backwards, Niall reminds himself. He used to know Harry well enough that he didn’t even need a map to traverse the quirks and oddities of his character. Now, he’s not so sure.

Niall studies his chapped, bitten nail beds. He practically chewed through the cuticle on his thumb on the way over here; the angry red skin still stings. When Niall finally musters the courage to look back up, Harry seems to deflate even further, like even his prissy, starched voice is going out on him. “At least you said it to my face. You want to come back to the house for a cuppa?”

“Really?” Niall asks. Then, “Yeah, ‘course. You know, -”

“You can take the boy out of Ireland, but you can’t take the Irish out of the boy?” Harry guesses, his tone dry. He cuts a look at Niall over the shoulder of his white terrycloth robe that’s equal parts complicit and…something else. Cynical, maybe. His curls twist up behind his ears and on the back of his neck, and Niall’s heart gives a familiar little pang.

Outside Harry’s studio, the sandy beach is almost as blinding to stare at as the sun glaring overhead. The sunlight is so strong that it bleaches the blue right out of the sky. It drains the pink out of Harry’s lips and the red out of Niall’s shirt-sleeves, too, like one of those old photographs Harry used to like so much. Niall just remembers the way the film smelled when it started to get old; Harry’s bunk smelled like rotten eggs for ages before someone - Matt, probably - took mercy on the rest of them and introduced him to preservation-quality photo albums. It wasn’t a bad smell, though, looking back. Not exactly. It reminded Niall of his nan’s house, and the candles she was always burning, and the handfuls of mothballs that she tossed into the closets and her old cedar chest at random intervals. The pictures smelled old, as well they should. It could only be earned.

White-hot beach sand dribbles over the tops of Niall’s trainers and right down into his socks. He envies Harry his bare feet, though he doesn’t see how his soles aren’t burning. The strap of Niall’s bag cuts into his shoulder, too; he wipes the sweat off his forehead, reminding himself to be grateful that it’s not as heavy as a golf bag, and that they haven’t far to go.

The short, unmarked trail leads up to the house Harry’s renting. Renting, or bought? Whatever the case may be, “house” isn’t really the word for it, either, so much as villa or hacienda would be. To Niall those words just sound like money, and while he’s glad he has some, he’s never spoken the language quite as fluidly as some of the others have. It just doesn’t come naturally to him, like lying, long division, or cribbage.

Harry pulls open a creaky screen door. Inside is an enclosed porch with a couple of Adirondack outdoor chairs and a little side table with a book open, spine up, on top. Niall doesn’t get a chance to see the title before Harry ushers him through the next door into the house proper. Niall brushes himself off as best he can in the little mudroom, but Harry’s already gone on into the kitchen, his bare feet trailing sand over the white floorboards. The house has the derelict feel of a pool shed in the winter; you know it’s seen a lot of action, but you don’t know that a nice family of giant snakes hasn’t moved in while you were away.

Half of the windows are bare, and the other half bear heavy curtains that have been carelessly pushed aside so that wide swaths of sunlight pour in and crisscross over each other like a tapestry. There’s an assortment of family portraits and artwork on the walls, none of which, Niall would bet, belongs to Harry; the people in the pictures aren’t his, and the art isn’t anything to his taste, either. They’re great big pictures of landscapes, many of them of the landscape right outside. The picture is starting to come together in Niall’s head.

He drops his bag on the floor just inside the kitchen and crosses to the sink gratefully. Niall can feel Harry’s eyes on him, but nothing short of a Red Cross disaster is going to stop him right now. Niall washes his hands thoroughly first, and then he bends down and sticks his head under the tap. Lukewarm water trickles down his collar and drips off his cheeks and chin. Niall sighs with relief.

“I’ve got showers,” Harry says. “You’re welcome to use one.”

Niall pulls his head out from under the tap and twists it off. He grabs a couple of scott towels from the roll on the counter and dries his face. Christ, his stylist must be having a fit somewhere in the world. “Nah, it’s just - plane, then beach, I’m -”

“Fastidious,” Harry supplies. “I know.”

“I was going to say gross, but sure,” Niall grins. Harry holds his eye for a moment, and then he looks away, and Niall clears his throat.

Awkward silence reigns till Harry mumbles, “This way, then,” and leads Niall up the stairs. A bay window at the top of the staircase offers an unimpeded view of the beach, and the sunshine sparkling off the bubbling crests of the waves outside.

“Does it ever storm?” Niall asks. He twists around to look at Harry, who’s stood further up the hall, his lips pursed. “I bet it sounds mad.”

Harry cocks his head. “I never thought about it,” he admits. “I suppose so.” He tilts his head again, so Niall takes it for the invitation it is. Harry opens a chipped white door at the end of the hall. Inside stands a four-post bed, a wardrobe, a chest at the foot of the bed, and an ancient-looking floor lamp overlooks an upholstered armchair.

But it looks clean, and smells fresh, and Niall was raised better than to complain. He turns to thank Harry and catches a glimpse into the room opposite his, which must be Harry’s; his thin cotton button-ups drape over his armchair, the mirror image of the one in Niall’s room, and the bedclothes are rumpled and strewn with bits of paper like Harry was writing in bed.

“I guess I’ll,” Niall smiles wryly. “Freshen up, then.” Everything he says sounds awkward and stilted and foolish; he sounds like a bad actor reading lines to a play rather than himself, and it irks him. Harry nods, so Niall dumps his bag on his bed and unzips it. He always packs his toothbrush near the top, and his mouth feels stale and fuzzy from the plane. He can run a comb through his hair, too, and on second thought, perhaps he will take Harry up on his offer of a shower. Even if it’s just a quick rinse, it would probably feel good.

“Hey,” Harry pipes up, from the doorway; Niall turns back to him toothbrush in hand. “Thank you,” he pinches his bottom lip, his rings flashing. “For coming, I mean. If I didn’t say it before…”

He didn’t, but that hardly seems worth pointing out. “‘S all good, Haz.”

Harry nods, and then he shuts Niall’s door for him. A moment later, Niall can hear Harry go into his own room and do the same. He’ll need to get up in a moment and get clean before he can properly get any rest, but Niall flops down on the bed, the aged mattress squeaking under his weight.

Part of him thinks he shouldn’t have come; Louis had certainly warned him not to. And no, Niall doesn’t really think Harry would’ve done the same for him. Louis had been purple in the face by the end of their last conversation, but Niall hadn’t been able to explain it to himself, let alone to someone else. Anyway, he’s here now. For better or worse.

***

When Niall wakes, he can smell eggs and bacon sizzling on the hob. His stomach grumbles loudly, and he makes a quick detour to the loo to piss and wash his face before he heads for the kitchen. There, he finds Harry standing over the skillet, his back to Niall. He’s changed into a plain t-shirt. The fabric is so soft and broken-in that it looks soft to the touch stretched over Harry’s shoulders.

“What time is it?” Niall wonders. Harry startles, and it’s almost the boy - guy - man that Niall remembers who looks at him. Niall drags his fingers over the pristine countertops. The stone is cool to the touch. Harry’s bare feet curl against the flagstone tiles; Niall imagines they probably feel nice and cool, too, but he can’t talk himself out of socks and shoes just yet. Doesn’t feel comfortable enough to, maybe. “It’s not morning, is it? Jesus, I didn’t think I’d sleep that long.”

“It’s,” Harry squints at the analog clock over the hob. “About eight, I think. At night, that is.”

Niall comes around to look at what Harry’s cooking. Ooh, boy! He would click his heels together with glee if he wasn’t scared to jump that high for his knee’s sake. Harry’s gone the extra mile and cut up little bits of sausage and bell peppers and red potatoes, as well. Niall would bet his right arm that the plastic bag on the counter has the nice homemade tortillas in it, as well. “A man after my own heart,” Niall says appreciatively, and Harry grins. “I didn’t know you knew how to cook.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Harry sniffs, teasing. He glides right over the top of an awkward silence with, “And I don’t, really. Gemma walked me through it.”

Niall turns round and boosts himself up on the counter a safe distance away from potential oil splatters, but not so far that he can’t sneak pieces from the tray when Harry ladles out the mixture to drain the oil. “How is Gems doing? Is she alright?”

Harry shrugs; it looks more like a shoulder twitch. “Yeah, she…” Harry turns the wooden spoon in his hand. “Yeah, you know.”

Niall ventures, “When’s the last time you spoke to her?”

Harry’s face goes hard and flinty. “Not so long ago. But thank you for your concern. I’ll be sure to pass it along.”

Niall can’t help that he rolls his eyes. The mood in the room seems to have gone down like the setting sun; the food still smells delicious, and the waves still lap soothingly against the shore, but Niall is equally tired of being on the defensive as he is of Harry assuming he’s on the offense.

“What?” Harry snaps.

“I was just asking ‘cos I care, shithead. I love your sister too, you know.”

The silence that falls after Niall’s words feels suffocating. Niall struggles against it till he bursts out, “Sorry. I don’t know why I keep saying shit like that.”

Harry swallows. “Yeah, well,” he mumbles. He takes the pan off the hob and drains the liquidated fat into a little tin.

“Where’s everybody else?” Niall wonders aloud. The question has been nagging him ever since the car dropped him off from the airport. He’d dragged his bag up the front walk and rang the doorbell, waiting politely for someone to come and let him in. Then he’d rung it again. Finally he was just taking his phone out of his pocket to text Harry when he’d heard faint strains of music snatched on the wind, and gone round back to find Harry’s studio. Surely there ought to be producers, and musicians, and even co-writers.

Harry doesn’t answer for a moment. His hair hangs in his face, curling tightly at his temples and on the back of his neck; his old cross necklace hangs a little away from his chest. “Everybody who?” Harry finally asks.

“Ah.” Niall kicks his heels idly against the cabinets and manfully restrains himself from asking any more questions. “So, can we eat?” Well, except one.

Harry doles out equal servings on two plates and serves them at the breakfast bar. If Niall was at home, he’d turn on the TV to watch and listen to while he ate, and he’d have his tablet in front of him so that he could check on his golfers’ scores. But if there even is a TV, Niall would guess it’s firmly out of sight behind the wooden doors of a big entertainment center, and he’s Harry’s guest, anyway.

Harry eats impossibly slowly; Niall has to remind himself to slow down. Then Harry slides out of his seat and goes to the fridge; he emerges with an armful of fruit. Niall watches in passive silence. Now that he’s not so blindingly hungry, he’s starting to wonder whether he made a terrible mistake coming here.

Turns out the fruit is for sangria. Harry makes them each a glass; it isn’t till he’s handing Niall’s over that he speaks again. “Sorry, I should have asked. D’you want -?”

“Yeah, ‘course.”

When Harry finishes his first glass, he promptly serves himself another. He leans back against the sink and says, “So, the studio first thing in the morning, then?”

Niall groans, playing it up when he realizes Harry’s smiling. “How about first thing after lunch?”

“Niall,” Harry says. It’s the first time he’s said Niall’s name since he arrived, and Niall thinks, Ah.

It’s just a word, and a little one really, at that. But Harry says it aloud, and it conjures up Harry’s voice in a dark room, so many years ago that it feels like a different life altogether, and Harry wore the person Niall most wanted to be on the tip of his tongue. So that’s why he’d come.

“Alright, then,” Niall mutters. Harry goes up to bed not long after, but Niall lingers over his meal. He finishes eating and then he turns the tap on. He curls his fingers around the edge of the sink and lets his mind go blank; the window over the sink offers another beautiful view of the beach. The house is built up a little, so Niall can’t see the waves licking the shore from this angle, but he can hear the waves, and the sea disappears over the edge of the horizon. If they can’t capture the sound of the waves on Harry’s album, he thinks, it’ll be a damn shame.

Then he rolls up his sleeves and scrubs the dishes clean. There’s no drying rack, so Niall lays out a little tea towel and sets the newly clean dishes on top of that. He spends a few minutes wandering around the kitchen flipping switches until he finds the one that cuts out the lights, and then he goes up to bed himself. A thin sliver of yellow light seeps out from under Harry’s closed door; Niall lingers for a moment in the hall, listening.

He can hear Harry moving about. The old wooden floor creaks under his steps; Niall shuts his eyes. He can just picture Harry wandering from the desk in the corner of his room to the window, then back again. Restless, untethered, too much like a ghost for Niall’s comfort. He’d forgotten how small Harry was without his entourage and his lurid floral suits. Harry stops moving abruptly, and Niall freezes, confident he’s been caught out. A long, breathless moment passes; then Niall shakes his head, lets his breath out slowly, and crosses to his own room.

***

“Okay.” Niall’s holding a styrofoam cup of coffee so hot that it steams gently in the cool morning air. Ordinarily there’s no greater comfort than a warm cup of coffee or tea in his hands, but the sea air is so moist and cloying that Niall feels uncomfortably stifled in his t-shirt and shorts. “So, maybe you can play me what you’ve got, and we can decide what’s worth keeping and what’s not?”

Harry pinches his bottom lip between his forefinger and thumb. He’s sat behind the mixing table in the studio behind the beach house. His curly hair drips onto the collar of his robe; Niall found him walking out of the sea this morning like some kind of graceless aquatic god. Niall wonders when the last time he took a proper bath was.

“Um, okay,” says Harry. His hand hesitates in mid-air, and then he decisively reaches over and hits a button. A desultory piano melody fills the air; Niall cocks his head. “What?” Harry asks, cutting a sideways look at Niall.

“It’s just, I think I’ve heard this before.” He starts humming to himself, the lyrics popping into his head right as the piano melody crescendos. “This is a Paul Simon song.”

“Oh.” If Niall’s not mistaken, Harry sounds sad. “Right, of course. Well, what about this?” He plays another snatch of music, though it sounds more like a handful of disjointed guitar chords than anything else.

“Is this the verse?”

“Um, what?”

“It’s just, if you’re playing chords, that’s like. Is this the chorus?”

“I don’t know,” Harry says defensively. “I haven’t written the lyrics yet.”

“Okay, but -” Niall stops himself. He struggles with what to say. “But you don’t need lyrics to know if you’re playing a verse or a chorus or a bridge, do you?”

Harry turns his face away, his expression going hard as stone, or as still as an unruffled lake. It’s eerie, especially with the waves crashing against the shore just outside.

“Hey,” Niall tries. He reaches out to put his hand on Harry’s shoulder, but pauses. Then he thinks, fuck it, and does it anyway. If he’s not mistaken, he thinks Harry might lean into his touch a little. “It’s alright. This is early days, eh? We’ll sort it out.” He winces, and chastises himself. He’s no right to making Harry any sort of promises. Not if he’s not willing to commit to them. And it’s just that he’s not sure he is, really.

“So you’re not going to tell me it sounds like a shitty knock-off of a good song again?” Harry asks. His green eyes are guarded, and Niall grins, weighing his words. It must’ve taken a lot of humility for Harry to even call him in the first place, he reminds himself; he must’ve been pretty desperate. Niall knows it’s not easy to let anybody see what you’re working on before it’s finished, and that Harry, especially, feels that way. He slides his hand up just a little so that his palm rests over the juncture between Harry’s neck and shoulder, Harry shifting into the touch.

“I don’t think it sounds like much of anything yet,” Niall says honestly. Don’t lie, and don’t apologize for telling the truth, either, Niall thinks. Harry’s gaze rests on him, light and heavy and new and familiar all at once, and Niall hears himself say, “We better get to work.”


	3. the price you pay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> canon compliant nouis past, present, and future for the prompt, 'things you said when we were the happiest we ever were'

There’s a split second after Harry’s finished singing his part but before the audience starts screaming where it’s like they’re all taking a deep breath together: Harry, his thumb covering the top of his mic, his hair pulled back into an untidy bun; Liam, kicking his heels against the stage setup; Niall, exchanging guitars with the tech who runs onstage to swap another out for him; and the stadium full of fans whose upturned faces really do look so, so beautiful.

Sometimes Louis’s not looking for it, or he just forgets, and he misses this moment, but he’s always happy when he remembers. It reminds him of the way he used to feel when he’d round the corner into the girls’ room, and one of the babies would be standing up in her little cot waiting expectantly to be lifted up and brought out to play. It’s like an inhalation, a pause at the top of a roller coaster curve. Like, “Here we go!” Louis doesn’t really know how to explain it.

The silence is promptly shattered by the cries of thousands upon thousands of adoring fans, and Liam counts them into the next song, and Harry trips over his own feet skipping down the thrust stage. The moment unravels like the thread at the end of a spool.

Niall wanders up behind Louis; Louis can see him in the hundred-foot-tall screen at the back of the stage sooner than he notices Niall himself. His blond fringe is matted with sweat, and the front of his shirt and the small of his back have both gone dark, revealing the patch of chest hair Niall’s so proud of and the narrow, serpentine shape of his spine.

“Doing alright there, Nialler?” Louis asks. He trusts that Niall can read his lips more than he can hear them; the crowd’s roaring approval really is deafening. Louis got his hearing checked more often than he strictly needed to until he realized that the ringing in his ears wasn’t tinnitus, that it was memory. The fans’ cheers buoyed him aloft like the surf in a wave pool even after he climbed out. He can feel it now, making him feel ten feet tall.

Niall just grins, and Louis can see the contentment all over his face. It’s been a long time since Louis felt secure in the answer before he even asked the question. But Zayn’s been gone for a month now, and for the first time in a long time (maybe even longer than a month, if Louis’s honest with himself) it feels like everything is falling into place just like it ought.

The minute they get offstage and have to hustle to the hotel or the plane (Louis can’t well be bothered to remember which, he’s not the tour manager, for Christ’s sakes), Louis knows Niall’s face will go all pinched with anxiety like there’s an elephant sat on his chest. But right now, onstage, with a guitar slung over his front, he looks well at ease.

Louis deliberately uncaps the bottle of Gatorade he’s holding, and Niall smiles harder, his eyes hardening. He turns away affably enough, and Louis puts the bottle back down; he’s just joking, anyhow. He knows better than to incorporate Niall into his and Liam’s current favorite game after the last lecture on electrocution.

Niall smiles harder, and speaks right into the cheek mic he’s wearing. “It’s a shame we only have a few songs left, eh, Louis?”

Louis rolls his eyes, but he knows his part. He lifts his own mic up and answers, “Might could stay a bit longer, couldn’t we?”

Predictably, the crowd screams. Liam beams at them with a smile so much like Geoff Payne’s that nobody dares point out the resemblance. On the other end of the stage, Harry spurts water from his mouth like a tiny whale.

Niall adjusts the face mic, still smiling. His pink cheeks make his eyes look very blue. “Next one?” he mouths, and Louis nods. They only have a few songs left, and then it’s back on the road to the next show. He wasn’t lying, though. Someday he’ll look back on this moment and see the telltale sings of fatigue in his own exhausted slouch and the lines around Harry’s mouth and on Liam’s forehead. Someday he’ll look back at this moment and be able to admit that yeah, they were due a break; that it was best for everyone that they got one. But right now, he just feels like he could do this forever.

The stage camera broadcasts Niall’s smile on the screens some twenty feet high. “Go on, then,” Niall says, though softly enough that the crowd obliterates the sound of his voice. So Louis does.

***

The invitation to Niall’s show at the Troubadour gets buried under an onslaught of emails about Louis’s recording schedule, his fantasy football league, Bria’s parenting pages she thinks they ought to know by heart, and the roughly six hundred adverts Louis gets per day from all the websites he bought shit from while he was drunk.

The new babygros from Oshkosh are cute, at least; Louis bookmarks the page for later. Freddie’s in one of those awkward in-between phases where 12M stuff is too small, but 2T is too big, and Bria insists that 18M stuff is a waste of money because he’ll outgrow it too quickly. Louis’s usual argument is that he has bloody money to waste, thanks very much, but then she goes into why he ought to set a responsible example for his son, and he tunes out.

Tuning out is better than trying to duck out of the conversation altogether. Louis’s also learned not to take offense when Bria insists on talking to Freddie before he goes to bed when the little lad’s staying the night at his place, and to nod patiently while Bria goes through the usual list of his son’s likes and dislikes. Things are better now, he knows. He also knows that good parents make sacrifices for their children’s happiness. He’s a good parent. He’s making sacrifices.

So Louis doesn’t see the invite from Niall until the lad texts him,  _Are u coming or what ._  and Louis taps Niall’s name into the search bar at the top of the app. He’s shoveling Cheerios into his mouth at the same time. After One Direction’s second or third tour, he learned the trick about buying organic milk because it takes fucking ages to spoil, but his Cheerios are still a little stale. Louis sprinkled extra sugar on top to balance it out, and it doesn’t taste half bad, if he does say so himself. A little crunchy, maybe.

Niall attached the PDFs with the proper invite and parking pass and everything to an email from himself. Over the top of the attachment, Niall wrote,  _Mad !_ haha

Yeah, Louis thinks.

 _Motherfuck_  he texts back, and Niall sends an incomprehensible string of emojis, which is well enough, because Louis’s already ringing up his mate Oli to get his arse over here and don’t embarrass Niall by wearing the same trackies he’s had on for the past three days straight. “I’ve got three pairs and they all look the same, Louis,” Louis’s arse.

Louis’s so caught up in making sure that Oli isn’t going to show up without trousers just to spite him and Niall’s telling little  _Mad !_  that he can’t confess to thinking at all, really, until he and Oli and pulling up to the Troubadour. A steady line of young fans – mostly young, and mostly women, but there’s more than a few blokes in the mix, and older folks too – trickles into the venue.

The sun sets late in Los Angeles. The sky is streaked with purple and orange and gold like thick brushstrokes, and the Troubadour’s white sign stands like a beacon in the night. The shadows under the lip of the curb and pooling under the parked cars and spilling out of deep entryways don’t seem as menacing as they usually do, or as inviting. It’s the night of a show; Louis’s veins sing with adrenaline.

Sense memory trickles in like rain on a windowpane, tap-tapping through his skin, spreading through his veins to his heart and his brain. Louis feels like he could scale the side of a building and lift a car with a single arm. He turns to do a headcount, checking that the other three are with him, when he remembers. He sags into Oli’s passenger seat, and if his laugh sounds broken, Oli doesn’t mention it.

“Ooh, she’s fit,” Oli says, pointing at a fan.

Louis dead-legs him out of habit. “We don’t go after the fans,” he says, and then he plays back his words in his own head. “Oh, shit.”

“What?”

“You think –” Louis feels self-conscious, and then he tells himself to get over it; his mum didn’t raise a coward. “You reckon they were our fans, too?”

Oli looks mystified for a moment longer, like a thick layer of fog. Then he gets it. “Oh, shit?”

“No shit,” Louis agrees. Oh, well. “Oh, well,” he says. “We don’t want to be late.”

Oli refuses to get out of the car on the grounds that if Louis wants to get himself killed, that’s very well, but he’s not taking Oli down with him. Louis unlocks the car from his side, leans over Oli to open Oli’s door, and pushes the other bloke right out onto the ground. Oli’s still brushing himself off when Louis rounds the bonnet, keys clutched in his grip. “That was not necessary,” Oli sniffs.

“C’mon,” Louis says. “I’ll buy you a keychain.”

Inside, the club hums with the particular song of an eager audience: hushed conversations buzz like an electric guitar, glasses clink lightly on the wooden bartop like cymbals, and the labored hum of the air conditioning system thrums like a bass guitar. And then gliding over the top of it all comes Niall’s voice, strong and sweet and sure.

Louis catches himself straining forward in his seat, his fingers locked around the armrests like he might go flying off if he lets go. He just keeps thinking, That’s Niall, as though that should help at all; in truth, the man onstage bears little resemblance to the bleached, braces-wearing boy Louis remembers. The show passes quickly, though without much lessening of Louis’s disbelief, and then the rushing in his head comes to a clashing stop; Niall’s onstage alone with just an acoustic guitar, and suddenly Louis doesn’t think he’s ever seen him look more himself. A note of longing pierces Louis’s heart like a sweet G major.

“Come down here!” Niall grins, lit up and sweating.

Louis doesn’t think a forklift could get him out of his seat. He shakes his head and sits back, hardly daring to breathe. To his disappointment, Niall lets him go.

The CEO of Spotify is clapping Niall on the back when Louis finds him backstage. Niall laughs and shakes his hand and the smile on his face never falters; Louis tells himself to find solace in that.

“Louis!” Niall says. Niall’s keyboardist looks up curiously, and then he tracks Niall’s eyeline to Louis, and he turns back to his conversation. A lump forms in Louis’s throat. He swallows it down and opens his arms to welcome Niall in. He smells like his familiar spicy cologne, hair gel, and sweat.

“You sounded amazing,” Louis says, and to his eternal relief, nothing but pride permeates his own voice.

Niall laughs and smiles and ducks his head, his eyes bright. “Yeah.” Niall pulls Louis back in for another hug, and Louis lets himself sag into Niall. If he closes his eyes, he can imagine they’ve just come offstage together from somewhere in the world – anywhere; feels like they went everywhere.

“Thank you for coming,” Niall grins, his hands tight and familiar on Louis’s biceps.

“I –” Louis starts, but he gets embarrassingly choked up. He looks over Niall’s shoulder, swallowing hard, and spots a few of Niall’s LA crew waiting to congratulate him, as well, and an older bloke with an honest-to-God notepad in his hand. He’s already taken too much time, Louis thinks. He swallows down everything rising up in him and tells Niall earnestly, “I wouldn’t have missed it.”

“Thanks,” Niall repeats needlessly. “Listen, I-”

“You’re in demand, I know. We’ll catch up later.”

“You sure?” Niall asks. He’s already taken a step back. He throws a look over his shoulder at all the loved ones eagerly queueing for him and then looks back at Louis, his expression as awed as Louis feels. A lock of dark hair curls on his forehead.

“Yeah,” Louis says. He reaches out and gives Niall a little nudge. “Go on, then.”

Niall leaves with one last squeeze to Louis’s shoulder, and a smile like a promise. Louis catches himself touching his own shoulder on the way home. The car smells like leather and In-N-Out and Oli’s weed. Louis rolls his window down, and a late breeze circles in, smelling of pine needles, exhaust fumes, and fall.

Oli throws himself across Louis’s couch when they get home, so Louis goes to the kitchen to make tea. He places his usual call to Bria and Freddie while he waits for the electric kettle to brew. Bria picks up, of course. “Hey,” Louis says. “How was your day?”

Briana fills him in on she and Freddie’s busy day while Louis steeps the tea. He has to hand-wash a couple of mugs because he hasn’t gotten around to doing a full load of dishes in a while, and then he spoons a bit of sugar into each mug, followed by a healthy slug of milk. He considers adding whiskey or rum, but it doesn’t seem right to drink while he’s waiting to talk to his kid, so he passes.

Freddie learned the word alligator today, and apparently he even asked to sit on the grown-up toilet, though Briana wouldn’t let him; she was afraid he’d fall in. “But go on and ask him about it, I’m sure he wants to tell you himself,” Bria says. Then, after a pause that she must spend just breathing in, she asks, “How was your day?”

“Good, good. I saw Niall play at the Troubadour.”

“Yeah?” Bria asks. Louis looks down at the cups of tea gently steaming on his countertop, feeling as weepy as if he’s just dropped Freddie off at his first day of preschool. “How was that?”

“It was good,” Louis says. Go on, he thinks. “He’s good.”

“Good,” Briana answers succinctly. “Oh, hey, baby. You ready to talk to Daddy?”

She hands the phone over to Freddie, whose little voice fills Louis’s misshapen heart and pours out over the sides, feels like. He’s making sacrifices.

“Agillator,” Freddie says, and Louis pulls up in surprise, and then he bursts out laughing. “Agillator, agillator,” Freddie repeats, evidently well pleased with himself for making his dad laugh. Louis hooks his fingers around the handles on the mugs and carries them out to the living room, where he kicks at Oli’s legs till he moves aside, and Freddie goes on babbling in his ear the whole while.

***

In the lead-up to his own album, Louis does a series of secret shows, though they’re not very secret, and calling them a “show” feels entirely too generous. It’s more like Louis standing at the front of the stage with a microphone in one hand and his fingernails curled into his palm in the other.

“Are you nervous?” Niall had asked curiously when Louis rung him up to invite him to the first show the other day.

“No,” Louis deadpanned. “I’m never nervous. In fact, I think I’m not nervous enough; I might go out there and fall asleep on me feet.”

“Alright, you don’t have to be an arse,” Niall replied mildly. He’d moved on quickly enough, but that’s something Louis’s thought about in odd moments between rehearsals, meetings with his label and management, and meeting fans: he could’ve asked Niall for advice, and Niall could’ve given it. It’s only strange that they started out together when Louis sees how far they’ve come, like they’re not so much marathon runners as pieces on a giant fucking game of  _Life_. Louis’s got El and Freddie and Bria in his little plastic car, and Niall’s somewhere on another snaking tendril of the board, another path, with his band and new girlfriend in tow, and it means everything and nothing at the same time. Maybe  _Chutes and Ladders_ would be a more apt metaphor. Simile? Whatever.

He does have El, though, Louis thinks. She curves her hand comfortingly around the back of his neck while Louis sits on the edge of the bed, preparing to tie his shoes. Then he’s only a brief car ride and a long, long three-hour wait to his first proper solo show. Mad, he remembers reading once. Mad, he agrees.

“You’re going to do great,” she assures him, her nimble fingers kneading away the worst of Louis’s knots.

“Will you love me even if I don’t?” Louis asks, tilting his head back to look up at her. She pretends to think about it for a moment. Her damp hair darkens the fabric of her shirt, and she smells soothingly of their shower, and their shower gel, and their home. Funny, that Louis thought once that the hardest thing he’d ever do is stop circling the world. Now he thinks not crawling right back under the covers and staying there is about the worst thing ever asked of him.

Eleanor combs her fingers through Louis’s fringe. “Yes,” she says, all open and earnest, like they’re still twenty and fireproof. None of the lads had put up a fight when Louis requested “Strong” from One Direction’s songbook.

Louis heaves a dramatic sigh. “Well, alright. S’pose I’ll give it a shot.”

A wild urge seizes him to ask the driver to pull over at Harry’s house. Louis passes it every time he jags north to catch IH-10 rather than cutting through the city streets. Sometimes the lights are on inside, but Louis’s never thought to stop till now. What’s the point? He’d wondered in his more cynical moments and, Better not to, he’d had to admit, in his more generous ones. The lights are on now, and Louis imagines Harry frying eggs and brewing tea in his own home. He’s more likely to be getting dressed for a night out at this time, though; Louis thinks of him with that lion’s mane and his loose shirts more unbuttoned than done up before he catches himself. It’s been years.

The venue is still quiet when Louis arrives early for soundcheck and to do the meet and greet. Years on, he can admit that there are certain parts of the job that Zayn was never cut out for. With a voice like his, Louis wouldn’t have stopped at anything short of world domination; but maybe it’s good he doesn’t have that. He’s got this, for better or worse, and he’s got the hungry growl of an eager audience, familiar as a song, and his own songs, which are even more familiar than that.

By virtue of having rehearsed every song some two thousand times, Louis gets through most of the show on autopilot. There’s a moment, though, right between the end of one song and the audience’s applause that Louis catches himself looking around onstage as if for someone else. Then the moment breaks like a pane of glass. Louis wonders if anybody else can hear the shards prickling his voice as the next song starts.

Briana couldn’t make the show in London, but Louis’s sisters and patient little Ernest do, and one of the twins jams a phone in his face. Onscreen, Freddie’s dancing to a low-quality recording on Briana’s phone. She waves at him from the background, and then Austin flips the phone and gives Louis a cheery wave. It’s a long moment before Louis can extricate himself, and then Niall’s standing there, patiently waiting his turn. Returning the favor, maybe.

“Well?” Niall asks, pulling out of their hug. “What did you think?”

“I -” Louis cuts himself off. He started to ask Niall if he remembers that night onstage in the middle of Louis doesn’t know where, on One Direction’s last tour. He can’t remember any better than that, ‘cept Zayn had already left.

He couldn’t see it then, but Liam and Harry were getting ready to tag out, too. Anyway, that doesn’t really matter. Louis’s not pissed at either of them anymore. Or hurt, or whatever. But before he’d gotten over it, and before he’d even gotten over Zayn, he’d known that Niall was there, and it’d felt like the only person in the world who wasn’t about to abandon him. Louis held onto that lifeline for so long he thinks the rope wore thin. Louis doesn’t want to seem maudlin, or pitiful, or ungrateful; he’s far too lucky to be any of those things. And he knows what Niall would say now, anyway. So instead he clears his throat and admits, “It was mad.”

Niall still tosses his head back when he laughs. His face, when he looks at Louis again, is achingly familiar. “Thanks for coming, mate,” Louis says. “Do you have to go, or could you stay a bit longer?”

Niall grins.


	4. we both knew the cost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> after their tours wrap in 2018, both harry and niall have some things to figure out.

Niall passes the salt shaker from hand to hand, thinking idly about Denise’s Christmas dinner, and Theo’s squeals of delight Christmas morning, and his da’s moist eyes and his hand on Niall’s shoulder. His family always makes him a right soppy mess, Christ. 

Under the table, his knee gives a twinge of pain; Niall reaches down and massages the tender muscles with his fingertips. He turns his grimace away from the sweet elderly waitress who’d taken his order of a water with lemon and catches sight of Harry waiting to cross the street. His face is pinched against the cold, sunglasses slipping down the bridge of his nose, hands stuffed deep into his pockets and shoulders curled in on himself.

Niall lets out a quiet laugh. Harry’s a sight for sore eyes, no pun intended. 

Niall tracks his progress across the street, catches the distrustful glance he throws at this out of the way diner Niall had picked. The diner is still playing Christmas songs from a faux vintage jukebox in the corner, and the whole place smells comfortingly of fresh-baked bread, burgers sizzling on the griddle, and chips frying. The bell above the door tinkles when Harry shoulders it open. He hesitates in the doorway, pushing his beanie back off his hair like Niall might have trouble spotting him. Niall waits for Harry’s froglike gaze to sweep across the diner. He very nearly misses him, and then his big green eyes flick back, and Niall waves a casual hand.

“Jesus, it’s cold,” Harry sniffs, by way of greeting. If he thinks it odd that Niall doesn’t stand up to greet him, he doesn’t say so. He slides into the booth across from Niall, tips his chin up to order a “Hot tea, please,” from Hannah, the waitress, and finally meets Niall’s eyes. 

Harry still squints when he laughs. He knocks his knee against Niall’s under the table and leaves it there. “Oi, Nialler.” 

“Oi, you lazy bastard,” Niall grins. “I dragged myself out of bed before noon for you, and you still couldn’t get here on time.” 

“Hey,” Harry still drags the word out, his dimples etched deeper into his skin than ever. “It’s not my fault you picked someplace so old my GPS couldn’t even find it. I just happened to spot it driving by, felt your glower from ten meters away.” 

“I wasn’t glowering at you, bastard,” Niall laughs, though he probably was. Before noon on a day off is too early, he’s always thought. Harry’s been up for ages, though, Niall can tell; he’s wearing a gray hoodie, but Niall recognizes the faint scent of Harry’s sweat after all these years, and there’s a lingering flush across the tops of his cheeks. Yoga, or jogging? Niall’s not sure. 

“Yeah, well,” Harry murmurs, finally. His hair’s gone long enough now that he could probably tie it back into one of those teeny ponytails, like he used to. He lets it fall around his face, instead, his hair curling into soft ringlets. He looks like a cherub, Niall thinks helplessly. “‘S good seeing you, Nialler,” Harry says. His knee presses a little harder into Niall’s leg. 

A blush warms Niall’s cheeks. Harry’s eyes are so big and soft, tender, even. It stirs something in Niall’s gut, same as it ever has; Harry presses against him again, and Niall’s knee gives a mighty twinge. Niall bites down on his grimace and sits upright, pulling himself away from Harry. He tries to make a joke of it. “You could’ve seen me sooner, Haz.” 

They never did make it to one of the other’s shows; last time they were in the same place at the same time, Niall texted Harry, separate from the group email chain, to ask him what Grammys afterparty he was going to be at, wanted to congratulate him in person. Harry never texted back. The edge of pain in his voice sounds an awful lot like bitterness. 

Harry’s picked up his steaming teacup and blows across the top, gently, his eyes downcast, his hair falling forward around his face. He’s an expert at camouflage, Niall thinks admiringly. “It’s not that I didn’t want to, Niall,” he starts slowly. 

Niall backtracks quickly. “No, I know you’re busy, we’re all busy -”

“You know what you want to order, sugar?” Hannah asked. She smiles cheerily down at them, her hands perched on her wide hips. 

Niall picks the first thing he sees on the menu. “Yes, I’ll have the Ruby’s Classic, thanks.” 

“I’ll take the Cobb salad, thank you,” Harry says. He hands his menu back to Hannah with a winning smile. Her heels  _click clack_ against the linoleum as she walks away. 

“Have you heard from the other lads?” Niall asks, determined to put the conversation back on track. He’s frustrated with himself for being such a knob and with Harry for hiding himself away so quickly. It’s tour, Niall tells himself; tour always fucks with his head a bit, makes it a shock to wake up in the same place each morning. 

Harry shakes his head. “You’re on the same email chain as me, mate,” Harry says. His voice is even a little stiff. 

Niall leans forward, dropping his voice. “Harry,” he starts, and Harry must realize it the moment Niall does, because he suddenly drops his shoulders and smiles again, lets a little of himself peek out the soft downturned corners of his smile. “Glenne had quite the idea about that, actually.” 

“Hope it was about you finally getting WhatsApp, you fucker,” Niall mutters, low enough for Harry to hear, knowing it’ll make him laugh. It does, thankfully. 

“Not quite,” Harry says. 

“Well, go on, then,” NIall tells him when Hannah’s done refilling his water. Niall forgets that he can have a coffee or a beer now that he’s not singing himself hoarse and happy every night. Even Harry’s hot tea smells great, steam still rising gently from the milky surface. 

“You know my mum’s helping with the UNICEF benefit in a few months,” Harry starts. Niall doesn’t, but he nods anyway. Otherwise Harry will stop and feel compelled to explain how dear old Anne got into the business, and what she’s done so far, and what her favorite bits have become, and how Harry was talking to her on the phone when he almost tripped over the kerb, and how great Alexander McQueen’s boots are this season, and on and on. Not that Niall doesn’t care to listen, but his food hasn’t even come yet, Christ. 

Harry bites his lip, the color draining out before it rushes back in, pinker than ever, and Niall tells himself sternly not to stare. He trains his eyes on the sweating water glass in front of him, instead, and the sharp pungent smell of lemon clinging to his hands. 

“Well, anyway,” Harry says, “Glenne thought it might be good if, er, One Direction made an appearance. It’d help raise money,” Harry starts ticking reasons off on his fingers like he’s prepared a pitch, “we could even record a, like, cover, for the benefit, and everything.” 

A hundred thoughts flit through Niall’s mind at once. He blurts, “Already?” while he’s still processing. 

“Here we are, boys,” says Hannah. She offers them another warm smile, her lipstick flaking a little off her lips, and sets down Harry’s salad and Niall’s order, which turns out to be an omelette stuffed with sausage, bell peppers, and cheese. 

Harry twirls his fork in his hand, touches the ends of his hair, and rambles on through his list of reasons why it’d be a good idea. Niall sits across from him and picks at his omelette without eating anything. Even if he’s not going to sing tonight, he hasn’t taken any antacids; he’ll be up all night with heartburn from this. His stomach rumbles, loudly. 

“Niall,” Harry finally says. “Here.” And he pushes his salad across the table, pulling Niall’s plate closer to himself. 

“I was about to eat that, Haz,” Niall argues pointlessly. He wasn’t, but he doesn’t damn well need Harry to know that. 

Harry says, “No, you weren’t,” and it’s his confidence that finally draws Niall’s eyes up, lets him look at Harry. His eyes are wide open, apologetic, startlingly green. Niall can’t help the way his stomach rolls in a way that’s not hunger, not even a little bit. 

 _Is this why you invited me out?_ Niall wants to ask. He knows there’s no point. Nothing’s ever  _yes_ or  _no_ with Harry; yes, he has done, but he also missed NIall, finally.  _Yes,_ but he wanted to catch up. Niall wonders at what point they’re far enough removed from the past to make seeing each other again feel like revisiting a holiday destination, everything softened and clouded by the golden aura of nostalgia. 

 _Maybe this is it,_ Niall thinks, with a sudden, inexplicable, gut-clenching burst of fear. Maybe the past is all that’s left to them. Under the sticky formica tabletop, Niall’s knee throbs dully. He’d pushed himself all the way through the 2018 tour, and now he’s paying for it. 

Harry waits till Niall’s speared a bit of carrot and started chewing before he confesses to Niall’s omelette, “I missed you, Nialler.” 

“I know you did,” Niall answers, startling Harry enough that he looks up. Niall waits, maybe punishing Harry for it a bit, the way he waits before he adds, “I missed you too, idiot.” 

Harry pushes his hair out of his face and smiles. 

Niall thinks about ringing Louis on the drive back to his place. What time is it in LA? Early. Probably too early. Niall props his head up on his hand at a red light and catches himself unconsciously rubbing at the top of his knee with the other, everything about him feeling tossed up. His body aches, his brain’s stuck in tour mind, his fingers itching for a guitar, to hit the studio, to get to work on album two, and his heart’s still caught up in the way Harry hugged him in the car park before they went their separate ways. He cradled the back of Niall’s head in one big palm, his mouth catching on Niall’s cheek as he pulled away like a promise. 

He knows what Louis would say, anyway. Louis, and his unflinching way of looking at everything, and his furious,  _He just wants to work the reunion angle to make people like him,_ and  _I know you love him, Niall, but_ …

The  _but…_ trails off teasingly.  

Niall goes home. He does a convincing job puttering about his house, tidying up after Willie and Paddy, putting on a game of golf low in the background. He doesn’t expect to hear from Harry again anytime soon (he’d invited Niall out, anyway, so Niall knows in Harry’s weird world that means it’s Niall’s job to reach out to him next time), but a few days later he gets a text from an unknown number while he’s sat the doctor’s office waiting for his scans to come back. 

The office is cold and sterile, smelling strongly of the germicidal cleanser hospitals use and floor wax. Niall’s stomach is one giant knot, and his head aches dimly from the way he’s been clenching his jaw all morning. 

 _Who is this?_ Niall texts back, though he thinks he knows. 

 _Niall,_ he gets back, his phone buzzing in his pocket while the orthopedic surgeon goes over Niall’s scans with him, his brow wrinkled in concern. 

Niall checks his phone while he’s stood in the lift next to his doctor, going upstairs for more tests. The antiseptic hospital smell is so strong now that it hurts to breathe, a little, Niall moving mechanically as he’s told to. He can practically hear his name in Harry’s voice, stretching the short syllables out in his long, whiny drawl, smiling widely. 

 _Come out tonight,_ the next message rolls in. 

 _Can’t, sorry Haz,_ Niall sends quickly, before the lift doors open and he has to step out.  _Next time !,_ he can’t help himself but promise. 

He doesn’t get a response, not that he really expected one. 


	5. straight on till morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nobody ever changes, they just get older.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> set just after louis gave the interview where he seemed to indicate he wasn't sure harry would want to come back to 1d after the hiatus

Louis’s car slips through traffic like a fish through water. The black asphalt reminds him of the kind of icy black tinge snow runoff gets, and he frowns, wondering where he would’ve seen that before. Norway? Sweden?

Has he even been to Sweden? Louis’s not sure. He doesn’t spend much time worrying about it, either. Used to, there was always Niall to remember everything, or even Liam or Zayn. Someone who was right there with him, who would pick up on the details while he was too busy picturing massive goldfish wriggling effortlessly under the frigid surface of icy black water.

They all had their own ways of trying to hold onto things. Niall was the memory man, Zayn drew stuff, Liam texted or phoned in all the best bits to his parents, to his string of girlfriends, to anyone who’d listen. Like storing memories in human receptacles. Louis used to write about it, but these days, he doesn’t make such a concerted effort.

He hasn’t got the time, and anyhow, he’s learning that you never really forget the things you want to remember. You never forget the stuff you might like to forget, either, but that just seems like part of the package. He props his elbow up on the door and thinks longingly about the cigarette tucked behind his ear.

He doesn’t want to light up in such a small space with a non-smoker – one of the side effects of being a dad, apparently – and he’ll get to the next press event soon enough. There’s always a green room to sneak off to for a smoke, Louis knows. He reckons he’s probably had a cig or a nap in a solid 25% of all the green rooms in the world, not counting the music festival green rooms that only exist for a few days every year.

Louis taps his fingers against his knee. He’s reaching for the cig above his ear, his mouth open to ask his driver if he minds, when his phone vibrates in his pocket. Louis has to shift around in his seat to dig his phone out of the pocket of his tight jeans, and by the time he’s got it out, it’s stopped vibrating. Louis’s expecting a string of texts from Olly or one of the lads about a match, or a bird, or anything, really.

It’s not. His phone vibrates with another call from Niall. The screen lights up with a picture of him from sometime last year, his hair still unnaturally blond, his face caught in one of those crinkly-eyed smiles.

He looks so young, and Louis catches himself smiling like an absolute idiot at the sight of one of his oldest friends. Then he remembers that Niall looks so young because it really has been ages since that picture, and it’s with the strange vertiginous aftertaste of change lingering in his mouth that Louis answers the phone.

“Lo?”

“Oi oi!” Niall laughs. Louis relaxes immediately. “I didn’t catch you smoking, did I? You know those things will ruin your voice, mate.”

Louis rolls his eyes at Niall’s gentle scolding. The soft spot Louis’s always nurtured for him seems to have grown over the hiatus, or something, Louis doesn’t know. Either way, it leaves him vulnerable to getting choked up at the strangest moments, like now. He thinks about saying, “Not much of a voice to ruin,” and then he knows that Niall’s just said that because he doesn’t think so, and Louis pauses. “No, you didn’t,” Louis finally says. “I’m in a car.”

“Windows up,” Niall guesses.

Louis laughs although it’s summer and a breeze might feel good, and there’s nobody to fight with over the air con with just him and his assistant in the back. She’s so engrossed in her iPad and two phones and laptop that he might as well not be there at all.

“Don’t be creepy,” Louis just says, and Niall laughs again. His laughter – and he’s always laughing, sometimes even when the tension in the room is so thick you couldn’t cut it with a chainsaw – his laughter soothes the frayed edges of Louis’s nerves like warm honey. “Have you got another song for me to hear?” Louis asks.

Niall’s been sending him teasing little snippets like the proper arsehole he is (and Louis knows it’s Niall’s own gentle teasing for the way Louis did “Back to You,” so he’s forced to be a little proud of him, the cheeky bastard), and Louis’s quietly thrilled at the prospect of hearing more. He hums, and then he heaves a breath and he says, “Nah. I rang to rag on you, actually.”

A knot of tension starts building right between Louis’s shoulder blades. “Fuckin’ hell,” he says.

Predictably, Niall asks, “Are you surprised, to be honest?”

“No,” Louis admits crabbily, “but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“I just mean, Dan of all people…” Niall starts. “And what you said – how you said about – ”

“I didn’t lie.” There’s a dangerous thread of righteous indignation in Louis’s voice. He can hear it, and he knows from past arguments that following the instinct to Win At All Costs has only ever lost him more than its gained, but he can’t stop himself. He never could. It’s just that he’s right, damn it. “I don’t lie.”

Niall sighs. It derails Louis for a moment, because he’s expecting an equal push back. He’s expecting the spiels he’s heard from management and that lot for years about managing his image and respecting the fan base. Louis could give them the speech right back, word for word, at this point. But Niall sighs, and Louis realizes Niall agrees. “I ain’t saying you got to lie, Louis.”

“Then what?” Louis lights the cigarette from behind his ear and sucks in a quick, acrid breath.

Niall stays quiet for a moment. Fuck, Louis wishes he could see his face. Finally, he forces a brittle laugh. “Harry’s not gonna like what you said, is all, mate.”

“So?” The question, short as it is, hangs like a challenge.

Patient, precious, lovely Niall says, “Don’t be a dick, Lou,” and hangs up on him.

Louis pulls the phone away from his ear, the cig dangling from his lip. Smoke wafts from the end of the cherry and stings his eyes, and Louis jabs at his screen with the pad of his finger a moment too late. Fuck, he hates being hung up on.

If anybody’s going to hang up on someone else, it better be Louis. He can’t believe it was just Niall who did it. “Little shit,” Louis breathes. He drops his phone into his lap and sinks back against his seat, taking drags off a cigarette he doesn’t really want to smoke anymore. They really will fuck up a voice. Shit.

…

Ofelia, the woman who keeps Niall’s house, opens the door. “Louis!” she exclaims, and promptly pulls him into a warm hug.

“Hi, you gorgeous woman,” Louis says. He lets her hold him out at arm’s length. She runs as critical eye – really, a mother’s eye; Louis remembers enough to know that – over him and clucks her tongue.

“Too skinny,” she says, like always.

“Too beautiful,” Louis says in response. She laughs and pinches his arm and blushes all the same. “Is Niall here?”

“No,” she shakes her head. Still, she takes a step back and ushers him into Niall’s house. “But you’re welcome to come in and wait. He should be back soon.”

“Thank you,” Louis tells her sincerely. Ofelia offers to whip him up one of her trademark omelets, or a grilled cheese, and Louis has half a mind to raid Niall’s fridge and pass out in his bed amidst a bunch of crumbs he knows Niall will meticulously vacuum away after Louis’s gone. “I’m just gonna take a kip on the couch, I think.”

Ofelia takes his hand and gives it a friendly squeeze. “Good boy,” she says, so Louis lies down and shuts his eyes. He falls asleep with Niall’s usual fresh citrus sanitizer and laundry detergent smell in his nose, and when he wakes up, Niall’s stood over him with a plate in his hand.

Louis stretches like a cat and shuts his eyes for a second just for the pleasure of opening them to Niall’s ruddy face again. “Is that for me? What a love.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Niall mutters, the tips of his ears pink. He sets the plate down on the coffee table and shoves at Louis’s legs until Louis sits up to make room for him, and then he pulls Louis into a hug. He smells like himself, and sunscreen and sweat, and Louis fills his lungs up with it. “You look good, man.”

“All this beauty rest I’ve been getting,” Louis jokes. He shakes his head. “I don’t know how you ran the promo circuit for months, mate. I’ve been at it for a few weeks now and it’s like to do my head in.”

Niall leans back while Louis leans forward, inspecting the sandwich Niall’s brought him. It’s turkey and cheese, and Louis lets out a satisfied hum. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance I could convince Ofelia to come live with me,” he speculates.

Ofelia shouts from somewhere in the house, “No, thank you, Louis!” And Louis and Niall both crack up. Louis tears into his sandwich and Niall lets out a sigh and sinks into the sofa, his shoulder rubbing Louis’s. Niall likes to be within arm’s reach if it’s been a while, closer if he can manage it, so Louis throws his ankle over Niall’s on the coffee table.

“Wanker,” Niall murmurs, and Louis huffs. “I didn’t know you were coming back to LA so soon. Did you bring Freddie with you?”

“Nah, he’s at his mum’s.”

“Well, never mind then,” Niall pretends to pull away. “If you’ve not got the baby, I’ve got better things to do. These sandwich-making skills aren’t –”

“Shut the fuck up,” Louis says fondly. He locks his arm around Niall’s and Niall gives up faking. “Get me some crisps to go with this.”

“Get them yourself.”

“Ofelia,” Louis starts, and Niall rolls his eyes and hauls himself off the couch and returns with a packet of salt and vinegar chips, just like Louis wanted. Louis smiles. “You love me,” he tells Niall.

Niall drops down heavily beside him and turns on the golf. “You’re a shit, Tommo,” he says, but he’s smiling.

They both know Louis’s there to finish their last conversation, but it takes them half a day to get around to it. Niall wants Louis to see the new trees he’s had planted, and Louis has a Netflix comedy special he wants Niall to watch, and then they have to break for burgers. They’re sat in Niall’s spare bedroom, which is stuffed wall to wall with guitars and effects pedals and a drum kit and half a dozen Moleskines. It’s not really a spare bedroom; it’s the start of a home recording studio. But Niall’s not come round to that yet, is all.

“I fucking love In n Out,” Louis sighs. He likes his burgers with extra animal sauce and a chocolate shake to go with his fries. Niall knocked back two antacids before they even sent for food delivery.

Niall puts the last of his shake aside and pulls an acoustic guitar into his lap. “Your eating habits, mate,” he shakes his head.

Louis rolls onto his back and looks up at the clean white ceiling. Outside, the sun is beginning to set over the Hollywood Hills. The light that seeps in through the wooden window blinds is a soft shade of blue, and the rug is soft beneath Louis’s back. “I didn’t lie,” he says. He’s hardly thinking when he speaks.

Niall keeps on plucking guitar strings. He’s playing some desultory, unfamiliar melody, and Louis makes a mental note to ask him what new song that is later. “No,” he says. “You were totally honest.”

Bristling, Louis says, “We can’t all say nothing, or not talk about shit,” he says. “It’s like my lyrics, mate – I just want to be, like, real.” Real, and successful on his own. Unspoken, his private fear: that he’s the only one who ever needed the band.

“You and me,” Niall starts, and it’s that phrase – you and me – that draws Louis up short.  _You and me_ , he hears, like it’s a call to arms. Whether it’s the streets of Donny or the footie pitch or a recording studio, Louis’s ready to go. All in, every time. He can’t help it. Niall lifts a shoulder. “We both know you couldn’t be anythin’ else,” Niall says. He lifts his eyes and quite suddenly, Louis feels utterly transparent. It scares him to the bone.

Louis licks his lips and feels a wave of genuine, actual fear wash over him; he poured his heart into that album and soon it’ll be out for absolutely anyone to hear and now he hasn’t even got his mum to fight in his corner and holy shit, what if people don’t even fucking like it? Louis teeters on the precipice of panic.

Suddenly, Louis laughs. “Hell with it,” he says. Niall cocks his head. “Hell with Harry,” Louis adds. His heart feels less like it’s slowly being crushed in an all-consuming vice of grief and fear. A little wildly, Louis goes on, “Fuckin’ winner, he is, isn’t he?” Louis shakes his head. He closes his eyes, but he can still feel Niall’s translucent eyes on the side of his face. It feels good, and it’s scary; it’s always felt good, but it wasn’t always scary. Louis just knows Niall better now. “A bunch of losers and misfits and underdogs, weren’t we?”

Niall’s started smiling. “And Harry,” he adds, eyes bright.

“And Harry,” Louis agrees.

…

The “Back to You” music video brings Louis back to good ‘ol Donny with a whole crew of cameramen, makeup artists, sound engineers, hair stylists, the whole lot. It feels a bit like throwing a wedding in his own home, not that he’s had the chance to do that yet, and the circus of making the video eases some of the suffocating grief he feels when he thinks about his mum.

Maybe it’s because he’s a dad now, or because it’s been so long since he’s last come home, or because the rest of Louis’s life has finally caught up to the sleepy village he was dying to get out of, but he’s never felt further from the familiar chips-and-gravy comfort of Donny. When he thinks about himself, he still thinks of a bloke off the park footie pitch, grass stains on his knees and a hastily discarded uniform shirt wrinkling in the bottom of his bag. He thinks of a bloke who’d call his mum every single day, who never missed one of his sister’s recitals, who fell in love at the drop of a hat and stayed there.

He is, and he isn’t. He’s not that bloke off the street, Louis realizes. He got luckier than that. Turns out, you  _can_  go home again, you just won’t want to stay.

Louis tucks Bebe under his arm and sings along to his own song under the camera’s penetrating gaze. He thinks about writing lyrics that are real and honest and Niall putting out the most heartbroken record he’s maybe ever heard and Harry wandering from one thing to the next. He thinks about Liam and the life he always wanted. Mostly he thinks about how nobody ever changes, they just get older.

The director calls, “Cut!” and one of the lighting blokes scurries round to adjust one of the big reflecting screens. “We’ll lose the light soon,” Bebe comments idly, meaning they’ll have to finish this bit tomorrow and then shoot some more footage for the video.  

“Eh, reckon it’ll be alright,” Louis says firmly. “We’ll sort it.” He sounds like a dad to his own ears. Like a proper adult. 

It sounds good.


	6. here, now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ever-so-slightly future fic where the boys assemble to meet liam’s baby, and harry grapples with how things change

Harry slides into the backseat, buckles his seat belt, and pops his earbuds in to listen to the mix Jeff (Bhasker, not Azoff) emailed him this morning. He waves to his driver and offers him a smile, as well as an apologetic little gesture to the glinting pink phone in his hand. He nods at him in the rearview mirror, smiles back, and reverses them out of the pilates studio parking lot.

Sweat sticks Harry’s shirt to the small of his back and his underarms and the inner curve of his knees, his back positively singing in relief. He’d been feeling sore and rundown, and he couldn’t tell whether his back aches from the strain of a good workout or whether he’s been sleeping curled up in a tight little ball again, his joints locked up by the end of the night. Maybe he’s coming down with a cold. He jots down a little note in his notes app to pick up some more cold medicine and herbal tea.

His notes are absolutely bursting with things he has to do. Really he’d be better off asking his personal assistant, Eloise, to pick up the tea for him, but last time he saw her, she was juggling three phones and the fattest appointment book he’s ever seen. The circles under her eyes were so dark they didn’t even look real; Harry’d been halfway to asking if they weren’t, if there was a new trend afoot in the fashion world?

He thinks about making a note to ask Kendall and doesn’t even bother, his thumb going still on his phone screen. Belatedly, he remembers to listen to the latest cut of his next single buzzing gently through his Bluetooth headphones. It sounds indistinguishable from the latest mix. Harry emails Jeff (Bhasker, not Azoff), _Top, mate. Thanks as always. Harry_ , and leaves it at that.

He’d had fantasies, one of those times the mattress fell off the wall during recording in some hotel in the middle of a never-ending tour, of really taking his time on a record someday. Maybe even his own record. Letting each song really permeate his DNA, or come bubbling out of it, something essential of him materialized and set to a good funky bass beat.

One Direction was his baby and he was its but sometimes Harry thinks they grew up too closely together to properly understand each other. This album was supposed to be him, and it is. At least, it’s as much of him as he thinks he knows. It sounds like music someone with his long hair and sketchy accumulation of tattoos and penchant for floral tops would make. That’s who he is, right?

“Where are we off to?” Harry asks his driver. He pockets his earbuds, mentally cosigning them to death even as he does it. They’re itty bitty wireless things – how’s he meant not to lose them? He must be on his tenth pair already.

August, his driver, answers, “Ehm, something in the Hills. Eloise had me pick up a baby gift from the office while you were at the gym. That sound familiar?”

“No,” Harry answers. He stares out the window. He’s quite good in social situations; he’s pretty sure he can fumble his way through those moments of free-fall where someone opens the front door and he can’t remember them for the life of him. He just wishes he hadn’t gone and gotten all sweaty first, that’s a bit odd, isn’t it –

Oh. Ah, Harry thinks.

There’s not many people Harry wouldn’t mind going to see just after a workout, really. There’s not many people who wouldn’t mind, either, though if memory serves, they always pretend to.

Liam’s baby. Liam’s _baby._ Liam’s real life, squalling, very alive baby. Harry clears his throat. “What did I get her? The baby, I mean?”

“A whole basket of stuff, boss. Some very cute onesies in there,” August adds knowledgeably. “My baby girl’s shown me all of the stuff she’s gotten for the new baby, see, so I’d know.”

Harry tries to unstick his throat. “Congratulations,” he says softly.

“Thanks,” August beams into the rearview mirror.

Harry taps out replies to another half-dozen emails on his phone on the drive to Liam’s house. He loads the calendar app just to see LIAM PAYNE – BRING BABY GIFT on his phone screen in Eloise’s short, succinct phrasing. His new appointments sync up and Harry watches every other day of the month turn red and green and blue. Red for important stuff, green for social networking events, blue for things that fall in between. If he’s being honest with himself, his whole calendar could be blue.

It’s not bad. Just, sometimes he thinks of the life he dreamt for himself when boot camp was going off and he wasn’t getting cut week after week, and he wonders what happened. They won, Harry supposes. In all the ways that matter.

There’s a familiar Range Rover sat in the driveway when August pulls up to the curb. It sat in his driveway often throughout MITAM writing and recording; Harry easily recognizes Niall’s Rover. It’s amazing how fast, and how thoroughly, relief unravels the ball of tension in Harry’s chest. If Niall’s there, Harry will be fine. He’s not entirely sure where the supreme confidence comes from but it feels like a law of the universe, and he’s felt a little too much like his own drowning character not to cling to a buoy when he washes up against one.

Hm. Maybe that’d make a nice song. He makes a note to make a note of it, thanks August for the ride, and plucks the baby gift out of the boot before making his way up the driveway.

“Oy!” Harry turns as August spins away. Technically he’s on retainer for Harry, but he likes to play snooker or feed the pigeons in the park while Harry’s off about business.

Niall’s sat in the driver’s seat of his Rover, his sunnies pushed up into his hairline and a bit of floss wound around his fingers. “Hey, Haz.”

“Don’t tell me you’re already leaving?” Harry asks. “I’m not _that_ late.”

“No, you wanker, I was waiting for you. You know how Liam can be all,” he wiggles in his seat like a bit of jello in an earthquake.

A long, frightening moment second passes where Harry truly does not get it, and then he does, and his shoulders sag in relief. “I do,” he admits.

“Hop in if ya like,” Niall says, so Harry clambers into his passenger seat. Niall’s wearing an unwrinkled pair of jeans, boots, and a collared shirt. Of course he is. “I’m almost done here. Is that what you got the baby? Prat. You could’ve paid a term of her tuition with all that stuff.”

Defensively, Harry says, “Well, I’ll pay that too.” Niall laughs and shakes his head and pushes his face toward the mirror in his visor to see what he’s flossing at, and Harry lapses into silence. He forgot what it was like to see Niall. The earth beneath his feet feels a little unsteady, not unfamiliar, just half-forgotten.

“If I ever have kids,” Niall starts, then, “when I have kids, you’re not to spend more than the cost of a lolly on ‘em. Mark my words, now, Styles.” He shoots Harry a look that’s only meant to seem serious; Harry can see the way the corners of his lips are twitching.

“You’ll be raising a bunch of monks, then,” Harry remarks.

“Aye, a bunch of little Irish monks running around a farm in the highlands.”

“That’s how you’re gonna do it?” Harry asks. Then, “You’ve thought of it?”

Niall folds up the visor, tucks the spent bit of floss away in an empty Starbucks cup, and folds his sunnies off the top of his head. “‘Course,” Niall answers. Harry reckons that’s fair.

“Ready?” Niall asks. He puts his hand on the door. Harry thinks of saying no, and asking please can they just stay in this inconsequential little moment for a little longer, but he can’t. He says yes. Niall leads their way up the walk and presses the buzzer. Harry spots the gift in his hands and he’s just whining, “Niall, how many terms of uni could _that_ pay,” when the door swings open, and Liam’s standing there, crinkly-eyed and smiling.

He scoops them both into a hug and they stand there on the stoop for a moment, three lads tied together by Liam’s ropey arms, the bony nub of Niall’s elbow digging into Harry’s side, Harry’s arm trapped against Liam’s ribs. Harry closes his eyes.

“You stink,” Liam says, pulling back. He wrinkles his nose.

“Pilates,” Harry says by way of explanation.

Niall and Liam both smile and roll their eyes. It annoys Harry, briefly, like they’re exasperated and annoyed with him and why should they be? He’s here, isn’t he? And then it passes, and he trips over the doorway following them in.

Liam’s and Cheryl’s house looks like a catalogue for wealthy living despite the new baby living in it. Harry and Niall are seated in a living room with overstuffed pink couches and a coffee table laden with cuts of cheese and sugared almonds and pear slices and a still-steaming pot of tea.

“The girls will be along in a bit, I think Cheryl’s feeding the baby,” Liam says. “What’s on, lads?”

They catch up. Liam dropped his first single, something dancey and a little raunchy, the day his baby was born, and he’s almost done with the rest of his album. Niall’s down two singles and already picking up promo gigs here and there for his album launch. He has a list of radio DJs he promised to come back to when he was doing “This Town” promo and cities he wants to visit on tour just so he can hang out with his friends. Harry’s stomach starts feeling very hollow.

Liam’s and Niall’s chat drifts into unfamiliar territory, something about tennis and a match they both watched with bated breath and a bet Niall lost grudgingly. Harry sifts through his memories of their email thread, and he has no recollection of this. They’ve – they’ve been keeping in touch, he realizes. More than he has. He’d thought they were all so busy, and the email chain was so dormant, he wasn’t the only one who’d lost touch, but – maybe that’s not the case.

It hits him then, like a melody callback from the beginning of a record to the end, how strange everything is. Harry feels distanced from his body and unmoored from his life, like he can see it from a distance, and he doesn’t know what to make of it. Like he’s an alien dropped into the memory of an old life. Maybe not even his old life. It’s so strange to see the lads again, and meet one of their _children,_ in his sweaty gym clothes with an overstuffed gift basket at his feet, and his back sore and aching. Harry feels like he’s been doused in a wave of vertigo.

So he pipes up that his first single’s doing well, too, that Rolling Stone called it “an impressive shot across the bows for one of the year’s predicted highest-selling records.” Really, they said that.

It pulls Liam and Niall up short, a bit. “We know, lad,” Liam says quellingly.

“You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find time to meditate, let alone catch a math on telly,” Harry says. Let alone chat shit with his old bandmates, or his mum, or anyone.

Liam and Niall exchange a look. Finally, Liam says, “It’s a good song. Reckon we’re a good bunch of musicians, lads. Who’d have thought it?” and laughs. “Mind, I know you’re not here to see me – let me check on the girls.” And he bustles off to round up his lady and his baby.

The room goes painfully quiet before Niall comments, “Feel like I’m meeting the queen.” He stacks a cracker with a load of cheese and fruit and stuffs it into his mouth in one giant bite. Harry envies him that he can eat whatever he want without ever showing it, and he wants to pat his knee soothingly, but he stops himself. He’s not sure why.

“Eat a biscuit,” says Niall. “You look a bit off, mate.”

“I’m fine,” Harry says. Niall fidgets with his scraggly fingernails.

Harry realizes Niall won’t look at him. “What?” he asks.

“Nothing, mate. Just, like,” he laughs. “I dunno, chill out a bit. The man’s just had his first baby. Let him have the moment, won’t you?”

Harry bridles, stung, but before he can say anything else Liam’s swooping back in with Cheryl in tow, and the tiniest baby Harry’s ever seen cradled in the crook of his arms. “My love,” he coos to the baby, “these are your uncles, Harry and Niall.”

Liam passes the baby very, very carefully to Niall, who wipes his sweaty palms on his jeans and handles her with as much care as he would a really fancy vintage guitar. Probably more, even. Harry sits down slowly opposite him, his breath all caught in his chest, terrible for singing with.

“Holy shit,” Niall breathes.

“Language,” Cheryl teases, her voice riding on a laugh. “Isn’t she beautiful?” The doorbell goes, and Liam breaks in, “I’ll get it,” his socks rasping on the wooden floorboards.

“She looks like Liam,” Niall says. “That nose – the eyes.” He very carefully touches the tip of her nose with his fingertip and the baby wrinkles her face and lets out a very soft sigh.

Harry can’t really hear or speak past the deafening rush of blood in his head. His heart is beating like a trampoline, yo-yoing around his chest cavity like he’s done too many shots of espresso in quick succession. His long litany of problems falls away and all he can think is, _amazing._

He reaches a hand out – carefully – and very lightly touches the baby’s soft cheek. She’s so fresh, and new, and perfect. Harry glances up to Niall out of force of habit, like, _Are you getting this, too?_ He finds Niall’s eyes red-rimmed and watery, though Niall clears his throat and tries to speak around it. “Beautiful, she is,” he agrees. The urge strikes Harry to reach out and stroke Niall’s cheek, too, almost like he’s just done with the baby. It’s such an awfully vulnerable thing to do, he thinks, and knows he’s not allowed.

“I’m not too late, am I?” Louis’s loud voice reaches them before he even enters the room. “She’s not walking and talking yet, is she?”

“No,” Liam answers, amused. The familiar sound of their banter quickly moves to fill all the empty spaces in the room, the bond between them like brothers, and Harry sits back and runs the back of his hand over his itchy eyes.

“Alri’?” Niall whispers.

Harry shrugs and nods, his throat too clogged to speak. He still wants touch Niall’s face. He wants a lot of things, he realizes. Not to feel like he’s drowning – like he’s not too busy keeping his head above water that he misses the important things – that he has time to breathe, and enjoy breathing – to make something this beautiful. For a moment, it feels like maybe he could.

“Want to hold her?” Niall asks. Harry nods, and they transfer the baby from Niall’s arms to Harry’s. She’s so soft and warm, and light – she can’t weigh more than ten pounds. That’s less than a watermelon. And there’s a whole person to grow out of this tiny little baby. “Wow,” Harry just says.

Freddie toddles into Harry’s legs for a closer look. He and the itty baby regard each other frankly. Harry looks up.

Niall’s grinning. “Well done, you two,” he tells Cheryl and Liam, who look every bit the proud parents.

Louis leans in for a better look. “Good news,” he says. “She’s got Liam’s eyebrows.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Liam laughs, and Louis pretends that he wasn’t poking fun, and Liam tries to dig his fingers into Louis’s sides.

Harry doesn’t want to leave.

He only blocked three hours for this, though. Or Eloise did. It’s the same thing, really. Louis’s already gone and Liam and Cheryl go to put the baby down for a nap, so it’s only Niall that accompanies Harry to the door, where August is back from his latest adventure, the car idling on the curb.

“Come with me,” Harry blurts, only somewhat desperately. “Please.”

“Why?” Niall asks.

Harry chews on his bottom lip. “Because,” he starts, stops. Now that he’s got him back, he can’t bear the thought of letting him go again. “I miss you,” he says.

“I’ve got recording time booked,” Niall says. “I can’t just run off.”

Harry wants so bad to stamp his foot like a toddler. “But you have time to watch tennis with Liam?”

Niall scowls. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Harry says nothing. “I tried to stay in touch with you, too, Harry,” Niall says. He steps away from the echoing foyer and down the walk a little, so Harry follows after. A cool breeze cuts straight through his gym shorts and leggings and he shivers, though it’s summer in California, warm and balmy.

“I was making a movie,” Harry snaps. He sounds petulant to his own ears. Hurt. “Those are long days, Niall, eighteen-hour days, and on the whole other side of the world. Not to mention you keep pulling your disappearing act, you’re not so easy to stay in touch with –”

Niall holds his hand up. “Disappearing from most people,” he says. “Not everyone.”

But Harry’s not really listening. “And then going into the studio and making an album. You’ve _no idea_ what it’s like, Niall, all these people watching you, and the expectations, and it feels like half of them want you to fail just so they can watch you mess everything up, and the other half think you’re so great, and –”

Harry’s own _what if I’m not_ draws him up short.

“You’re right,” Niall says acidly. “I have no idea what that’s like. Can’t even relate.”

“Don’t get mad at me!” Harry says. His eyes start stinging and aching again. He wipes, roughly, at his face. “Don’t get angry with me, please. I’m just – you’ve done all these songs that sound like your baby, Niall, it’s – it’s not the same.”

Some of the familiar color drops out of Niall’s face, and the anger is replaced with something sympathetic, and Harry blurts, “I don’t – why are we arguing?” He laughs. It sounds a little wet. “I don’t want to fight with you.”

“We’re not. Hey,” he touches Harry’s arm. “We’re not. Okay?”

“I have to go,” Harry says miserably. “I have to go to a party tonight.”

Niall gives Harry half a smile. “Well,” he says, “have fun.”

“Come with me,” Harry repeats. He hopes it sounds less petulant this time. Less desperate. He doesn’t feel any less desperate.

“Stay in touch, Styles,” is all Niall says. He bids Harry farewell with a kiss to his cheek, and Harry goes because he’s been sent, and climbs into the backseat of August’s car.

“Ready?” August asks, after a pause. Harry keeps his eyes trained on Niall in the yard, his arms crossed loosely over his chest, his face unreadable. And he misses him.

“Yeah,” Harry says hoarsely. The car trundles him away.

***

“I don’t know,” Nick draws the words out. “Eileen’s still pretty chaffed you didn’t show up for her Sunday roast, Harold dearest.”

Harry twirls a too-short strand of hair around his finger and worries over his bottom lip. He knows Nick doesn’t really mean Eileen’s bothered. He means he is. “Nick,” he starts uncertainly. Harry’s been a lousy friend to him, he knows. But here he is, always asking for forgiveness, for more kindness, for Nick to give him something he can’t give himself.

Nick heaves a heavy sigh. “Well,” he says. “I suppose perhaps I could fit you into my schedule. But I expect chocolates. And maybe flowers. Perhaps a cookie bouquet.”

“Done,” Harry breathes, relieved. “I’ve already ordered them, several, enough for the whole station.”

“You’re going to give me diabetes,” Nick whines. Harry thinks he can hear a smile in his voice.

A week later, Harry makes good on his promise of a cookie bouquet. He presses his finger to the buzzer to be let up to Nick’s flat, shifting his weight from foot to foot. He brought along an armload of YSL’s samples for Nick to pick through, too, figuring that would earn him a few extra Brownie points for the next time he drops the ball. Harry sighs. Maybe someday he’ll stop planning ahead for his next misstep.

“Harold,” Grimmy sweeps the door open. “Welcome to my humble abode.”

Harry steps over the threshold and takes a deep breath. “I love it here,” he says, same as he’d done when he was sixteen and had hardly been to _anyone’s_ flat before, let alone a famous radio DJ. The whole place smells like pomegranate and vanilla candles, and Nick’s got beautiful art hung up on every wall. Some of it’s his, some others’; it’s been so long, Harry can’t quite tell them apart anymore.

“I’d love to catch up and all,” Nick says, eyeballing him. “But we can do that after you let me hear this album. Gimme,” he says, and makes grabby hands at Harry. Harry laughs and ducks away and then steps back in so Nick can soothingly run his big, comforting hands over Harry’s chest and stomach. They never quite made good on the way they were in love when they were younger, so it lingers improbably like this. Harry thinks he’ll always carry a candle for Nick. It’s not the worst thing.

Nick’s made up a little space for them to listen in, dear that he is. He’s unearthed a CD player and set it up in front of a couple of easy chairs with a nice soft rug in front Harry can stretch out on like a cat. Grimmy knows him so well.

Harry folds himself to the floor and folds his hands behind his head, staring up at Nick’s ceiling as an hour passes between them, and Harry’s first album plays out into infinity. The notes feel like radio signals he’s broadcasting to space, like another Voyager mission, the whole and enormity of being human bundled up and mailed out to the universe as a brief introduction.

He can see Nick from the corner of his eye. Nick sits with his feet tucked up next to him, his legs long and hairy. He doesn’t say very much. He doesn’t really move very much, either. At one point he leans down and swats at Harry’s shoulder, his face tight and open, like a satellite on another planet picking up Harry’s message.

“So?” Harry finally asks.

“It’s very good,” Nick says reassuringly. “I’m looking forward to playing it all the livelong day, H.”

Harry takes his phone out in the car on the way back to his house, the cursor blinking innocently at the end of the line. _I think it’s finished. I’m ready_. Jeff (Azoff, not Bhasker) would be overjoyed, but Harry can’t bring himself to send it. He says, “August, if you had a friend, a very old, very good friend, and you’ve fallen out of touch, what would you –”

“Call,” August says immediately. He glances up into the rearview mirror. “I’d call him, boss.”

“Never said it was a him,” Harry mutters, and dials Niall anyway.

He picks up on the second ring. “Hullo?”

“Can I come over?” Harry asks. “Are you in London?”

“I – who is this? What?”

“Niall,” Harry says patiently. “It’s me. Are you home? Can I come over?”

“I don’t have any milk,” Niall says. He sounds dead sleepy. “For tea.”

“Shall I pick some up?”

There’s quiet, then the ruffled sound of covers moving, on Niall’s end. “Okay,” he says. “Might as well be a love and pick up some biscuits, too.”

“I will,” Harry vows.

Niall makes a soft sound of agreement and rings off. Harry gets one of each flavor of biscuits from the shop by Niall’s house, and then he and August pull up to the gate. Harry climbs into the front seat and leans over August’s lap to hit the bell and shout at the buzzer, “It’s a load of biscuits and Harry!”

“Christ, I know,” Niall mumbles. “Give poor August some space, mate.”

Harry pulls back into his own seat. He isn’t nervous until August stops the car and it’s time for Harry to climb out, and then he unbuckles his seat belt with shaking hands and watches his feet to mind the stairs.

Niall’s waiting in the open doorway. He’s wearing a soft gray hoodie and a pair of black joggers. His socks are patterned with stars today. His face is still a little muted and soft with sleep, and Harry has that urge again, stronger than he’s ever known it, to touch Niall’s face. Stroke his cheek, press his forehead to Niall’s, trace the contours of his tired smile with his lips. None of that is new. It just feels more pressing than before. It’s finally dawned on Harry that he may not have forever.

Harry could apologize for waking him up, and for snapping at him at Liam’s, and for a whole host of other things, but if he starts apologizing now he’ll never stop. So he just says, “Can I come in and play you my album?”

And Niall says, “No.”

Harry draws up short. “What?”

“Let me have it,” Niall holds out his hand. “I’ll listen to it and tell you what I think.”

“I…what?” Niall’s never told Harry no before. It’s one of those things, like gravity or motion, that Harry’s hung his whole world on.

Niall lets out a little breath. “It’s late,” he answers. “And I’ve got interviews all day tomorrow – I’ve got to sleep, Haz, love.”

“But I…” He shakes his head.

“I love you,” Niall reminds Harry gently. “But I’ve got my own life, too.”

Harry sags against the doorway. “I know.” He shakes his head. “Sorry. I know.”

The truth of it hits him like an arrow to the heart. They each have their own lives, and their lives don’t revolve around each other anymore. Louis and Liam have their babies and their girlfriends and Niall has his career and his friends and Harry – Harry was so busy thinking about himself that he hadn’t realized he’d already lost them.

Love is to hold, but not to keep; relationships can’t last for changing; people are never as simple as they seem. Harry knows these things – he’d already written an album’s worth of songs about them before he ever even considered a solo record – but he let himself forget.

Maybe forget’s not the right word. Maybe he’d just loved them so much he thought he had to let them go.

Maybe he doesn’t have to.

“Don’t let me lose you,” he tells Niall, suddenly. The desperation in his voice is almost palpable. “Please.”

Niall says, “You’ll be fine, Haz. I promise.” And Harry believes him.

He leaves Niall with milk and biscuits for his tea, and his album, and climbs back into August’s idling car. “Well?” asks August.

“Yeah,” says Harry. “We’ll be fine.”

***

Harry leaves his last pre-release meeting with a skip in his step, his heart buoyant. He hadn’t realized what a heavy weight the album had been, how much he’d been worrying over it. It still doesn’t feel perfect, but he gave it the best he has. It’s time he let it out.

“Augie!” Harry crows, sliding into the backseat. He means to ask for a smoothie, or a coffee, or maybe a combination of both – the next big beverage trend? – when he realizes there’s someone sat beside him.

Niall looks not least amused. Harry doesn’t bother fighting the urge to touch his face. His skin is soft, and a little dry, and the stubble on his cheeks is prickly and darker than Harry always expects it to be. “This is a bit stalker-ish, isn’t it?” Harry asks.

Niall shrugs. “I prefer Bond,” he says, doing the accent and everything. “James Bond.” He waits for a moment, watching Harry’s face. “How’d it go?”

“It’s done,” Harry sighs. He can’t help touching Niall’s face again, just because he can. “I’m done.”

Niall nods, his eyes half-lidded, at ease. “Till you have to sing them every night for the next, like, forever.”

“Oh,” says Harry, stiffening in surprise. Next to him, Niall bursts into laughter.  


	7. give and take

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nouis au; louis's a thief, and niall's the cop who keeps thwarting him

Louis gives the room one last sweep with his infrared goggles on just to make sure that the laser maze is really powered off. Good, good. All according to plan. He has thirty seconds to cross the room without tripping any other traps, cutting through three-inch Plexiglas, and retreating safely across the room with the goods in his possession. 

No problem. 

Louis pushes the goggles up to his forehead and takes off across the room at a mad run. There are times for care, and there are times for getting the fuck where he needs to be before he trips an alarm and Scotland Yard descends on him like a bunch of harpies out of the pits of hell…again.

He comes to a screeching halt in front of the podium with the Plexiglas case on top. Louis fumbles in his pockets for a scoring knife. The first time Louis tried to break a car window, he came away with a smarting hand and renewed determination. He managed to smash the window on his second attempt, but only with the help of a metal baseball bat. All’s he’s got against this Plexiglas safety case is a wee knife and the dint of his own elbow grease. 

In short, it’s exactly the way Louis likes it. He rears his arm back and strikes the corner of the Plexiglas case with all the might he can muster, and brings the knife down like Merlin scoring the sword into the stone. He leaves a long, if uneven, scratch on the Plexiglas box. Louis checks his watch. Fifteen seconds remaining. Fuck. 

Louis continues his enthusiastic assault on the plastic box, sure that he can hear the seconds ticking down on his digital wristwatch. “Fuck it,” Louis says, and steps back. He knows he’s not going to make the thirty-second time limit like he knew his train wasn’t going to make it back home in time for his mum’s birthday last year. At this point, it’s just a point of professional pride. “Fuck it,” Louis repeats, digs his toes in, and puts all his weight behind knocking the podium over. 

“I wouldn’t,” warns someone. 

Louis doesn’t stop flattening the side of his face and his shoulder against the box to tell him, “Go away.” 

Not least amused, Niall asks, “Why? You got another riveting crime for me to put a stop to?” He makes a big deal of looking around, the asshole. Louis rolls his eyes and focuses on pushing the podium over, because he’s a clever bloke who has exhausted all of his other options and must resort to stupid brute strength. 

“Are you going to help, or what?” Louis pants, a fine sweat broken out uncomfortably under his clothes and along his hairline. 

Niall hems and haws and then puts his hands on the edge of the podium to put his weight behind it, as well. Louis’s definitely not busy looking at the lean line of Niall’s body stretched taut like a supple bow when something gives an ominous creak, and the whole thing goes tits up. Louis bails out to the side and comes up victorious, the Plexiglas box smashed to a thousand irretrievable bits, the treasure inside just a little scuffed up. 

“Dibs,” says Niall. Louis inflates with rage. 

The laser maze reactivates with Louis and Niall standing right in the middle of it. Louis watches red laser beams shoot Niall right through the side of his head and his stomach, and the building goes into meltdown mode. No alarms sound, but the lights go off, leaving Louis and Niall in a pitch-black room. The skylight overhead leaves just enough light for Niall’s eyes to look very blue. Louis hates him. 

“I hope you go to jail with me,” Louis says, with relish. 

“Not likely,” smiles Niall. 

Louis has just enough time to recognize the flash-bang grenade in his hand, and then time crunches down on the next few seconds: a blinding light, a sound that rattles Louis’s ear drums, and the next thing he knows, the curly-haired police officer toeing Louis with his boots, an apologetic smile on his face.

“Sorry to do this to you again…” he trails off. 

Louis rolls his eyes and tucks his face into the safe darkness of his shoulder, sure in the knowledge that his bounty’s already been collected. “Just take me in,” he sighs. The cuffs actually feel familiar clicking into place around his wrists.

***

They take the cuffs off once they’ve done dumping him into his very own jail cell. Louis sits down on the low bench they call a bed and settles in to wait. 

He gets bored within minutes, of course. In addition to his freedom, the police have also taken his clothes and all the various tools of his trades concealed therein, so Louis’s left with nothing but his own skin and a particularly unflattering shade of orange scrubs. He wriggles his shirt off over his head in spite of the automated chill on the air and feels better already. 

“You’re not meant to do that,” says Curly. Louis gives a gusty sigh and fights the weariness he pretends not to feel down to his bones. “What are you going to do with it, anyway?” 

“Look at it,” says Louis, in the driest voice he can manage. It comes out arid as a desert; he’s quite proud of himself. “Why are you so far away?” 

Curly drifts a step or two closer. “I’m being wary,” he says. “I saw what you did to Officer Lee last week.” 

“A little pressure point manipulation –” Louis starts, then, “He’s alright, right?”  

“Yeah,” says Curly glumly. “It’s just that the boys at the station have been giving him shit for it nonstop.” 

“I like you, Curly,” Louis admits, in a pained sort of way. “I wish you weren’t on that side of the cage.”

Curly smiles wryly and says, “I wish you would call me Harry.” 

“Get me out of here and I will,” says Louis sharply. 

Harry shakes his head ruefully. “Sorry,” he adds, for no damn good reason. Louis’s about to tell him so when the door at the end of the hall opens again, and Inspector Horan steps through, looking sharp as ever in his neatly pressed uniform. 

“Well, well, well,” says Louis. “If it isn’t the neatest thief I know.” He rises to his bare feet, distinctly aware of what an impression Niall makes on the eyes, and what an impression he makes, shirtless and barefoot in paper-thin orange pants. He widens his stance a little. 

Harry looks between them. “He’s not a thief,” he scoffs. Louis would ruffle his curls and pinch his sweet, unlined cheek if he wasn’t worried about getting tased or worse, looking stupid. 

“He stole me,” Louis says, and watches Niall’s face carefully for any sign of concern, or worry, or even deep interest. He just looks stern and severe, premature lines set into his forehead and either side of his mouth like they’re not actually probably laughter lines. 

Louis’s gone over it in his head so many times he thinks he’s probably gone a bit insane, and he still can’t figure out how Niall’s been poaching his best targets from him for more than six months and keeping up appearances as the local constable at the same time. It’d be impressive if it wasn’t so goddamn inconvenient. 

“Very funny,” drawls Niall. “How are you doing in here?” He makes a big show of looking at the shirt Louis discarded on the crappy bed. “Do the inmates’ clothes really offend you that bad?” 

“What, did you want to take it off me yourself?” Louis asks. He watches the color in Niall’s face deepen ever so slightly, and preens, rocking back and forth on his toes. Even Harry looks away for a moment. 

Niall sighs gustily. “What did you do with the queen’s jewels, Mr. Tomlinson?” 

Louis wraps his fingers around the metal bars, carefully, slowly. “I don’t know,” he says slowly. “What do you think I did with them, Inspector?” He’s trying to figure out some way of asking Niall if he wants to check his orifices in a way that isn’t the complete opposite of hot when yet another someone piles through the door. 

“Don’t say anything!” calls Liam. “As your lawyer, I’m warning you, don’t say anything.” 

“I wouldn’t dare,” says Louis, and widens his eyes as innocently as he can manage. 

The rest of the dance continues just as if choreographed. The police want to hold Louis, Liam demands to see proof of their charges, nobody knows where the damn goodies went, and Louis walks out with yet another fine for breaking and entering. 

Liam sits across from him at the breakfast table and shakes his head, looking every inch the concerned father Louis probably wouldn’t have benefitted from when he was a kid. “I just don’t get it,” he’s saying while Louis scoops scrambled eggs and sausage into his mouth as fast as he can muster. “It’s not like you need the money. If you want thrills, why not go the normal route? Drugs, and brothels, and the rest of it. An opium den,” says Liam, almost hopefully. 

“Do people really say _brothels_ still?” Louis asks. He lifts his coffee cup to his lips and takes a sip, but not before he catches sight of a familiar reflection in the black surface. Louis turns his head, but he’s gone by the time Louis looks round. He lowers his mug back to the table feeling shaken, not stirred, and explains to Liam as plainly as he can, “It’s about pride, mate.” 

Liam just shakes his head some more. Louis loves Liam like the brother he grew up with who turned out to have a modicum of ethical decency, which Louis hasn’t got, but sometimes he gets frustrated with him all the same. If Liam just had a taste of what it was like to stand triumphant with something nobody wanted you to have, but that you won anyway, then his poor sodding heart would probably implode with adrenaline. God, it’d be great. 

Instead, Liam sends Louis off with a promise to talk to Louis’s financial manager about paying off this fine. Louis takes the tube back to his flat on his own, his weight balanced comfortably against the slender pole in the middle of the carriage. The underground passes by through the windows in a series of flashes, like the snapshots of Louis’s life that are all he remembers. 

Playing in the garden with the family dog; being lifted out of the grass and tossed in the air by a laughing man; lying flat on his back under the stars and feeling like a prince of the universe. And then, like the carriage screeching off the tracks and exploding in a fireball of childhood, imprisonment, death, and the blackening of the family name. Louis tries not to let on how much it bothers him anymore. 

The doorman, Paul, waves Louis in with a smile when Louis turns the corner to his building. Louis trots up the steps so Paul’s not caught holding the door open in the rain, and Paul ushers him in with a warm hand on his elbow. “You alright, boss?” he asks. 

“Me?” says Louis. “Always. How about you, Paul? How is the little lad?” 

“Gorgeous,” gushes Paul. He shows Louis the latest pictures he has on his phone after Louis asks, and it’s warm, and bracing, if a little sad, to be stood inside this familiar building again after so many years playing hide and seek from himself around the world. Home’s home, no matter how hard you try to run from it. 

“Beautiful,” Louis agrees. He’s still thinking of the smiling toddler in Paul’s photographs when the lift doors open to his flat, and he finds Niall sat the bar inside playing with one of his bejeweled pears. Peridot pears. Louis bought them just for the name. 

“Come to steal that too?” Louis asks mildly. He stalks over to the fridge and pulls out the cartoon of orange juice. 

Slowly, Niall answers, “Not if you’re attached to them.” 

“What, honor amongst thieves?” Louis sneers. He’s not sure why his mood took such a turn when he found the inspector in his kitchen, but it did, and he’s too worked up to analyze himself right now. 

With the same careful deliberation, Niall answers, “Something like that. I’m sorry to invade your privacy, but I thought it’d look a bit odd if I was hanging around outside your building.” 

“I know,” Louis snaps. Then, “No, I know. Duh. You want some of this?” 

Niall wrinkles his nose. “Not without vodka, thanks.” 

That wrings a smile out of Louis, and he’s not surprised when Niall slides off the barstool to his feet and approaches carefully. He hates having that effect on people, sometimes, like he’s a wild animal, or a porcupine, something damaging to the touch. He just wonders if he is, and – 

Niall settles his palm on Louis’s hip and hooks his chin over Louis’s shoulder. Louis drinks his orange juice and tries to choose his next move in a game of chess that gets more complicated every time he looks at it. “What happened to the jewels?” he asks, finally. 

“They, or a near enough facsimile, will turn up in a few hours. The case will be closed. You’re safe.” 

Louis leaves his glass on the counter and turns in the circle of Niall’s arm. He pulls, not too gently, on the boring black tie knotted neatly around Niall’s throat. “You’re safe, you mean.” 

“You’d’ve been caught whether I was there or no.” 

“You take all the fun out of these things,” lies Louis. Then, “You’re making it all so complicated.” 

Niall’s face shifts subtly in one of those thousand-word expressions he has. “You were never really the Robin Hood type.” 

“I’m definitely some kind of king,” agrees Louis. “And my time is very valuable, so if you’re going to kiss me –”

Niall rolls his eyes and leans right in, easy for it, soft and gentle. Louis wasn’t entirely wrong – he is complicating the simple fun of Louis’s cat-and-mouse game of thievery – but he left out the part where Niall himself is at least half of Louis’s problem. 

It’s awfully hard to figure out how to backstab someone when they kiss you like this, full of honey-slow confidence. Niall cups Louis’s bristly jaw in his palm and fights to keep the kiss slow and sweet while Louis tries to bite him, and Louis thinks, not without a touch of sadness, that there are parts of this he’ll miss when he finally figures out Niall’s con. 

He’ll miss the broad shape of Niall’s shoulders, and the way he makes the whole bed smell like clean laundry, and how unbelievably fucking ugly his bare feet are. Yeah, he’ll miss things. He’s still going to figure out this con if it kills him. 


	8. want you back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a nouis high school vampire au (things change, but niall can't)

If you’d asked Niall what he’d do with immortality, super strength, and heightened animal instincts, he wouldn’t have answered “high school.” It’s a bit of a lame joke, innit, since those Twilight movies came out and just about ruined vampires and werewolves for everyone. Even Niall, who’d sat through one of them at the movie theater because he’d taken Holly Nielson on a date and she absolutely insisted – even Niall remembers sitting in his creaky movie theater seat thinking, Well, that’s a wash. If he was a vampire, he’d spend the whole of it larking about, going to shows, doing a bit of shopping, buying the biggest TV he could find.

Anyway, turned out the joke was on him. Junior year of high school, he’d opened the door to receive a pizza and the deliveryman dropped the box on Niall’s nice new sneakers. Then he’d lunged for his throat. Niall woke up in the hospital to the doctor’s guesses about an animal attack. He tracked down the deliveryman to the police station, where he’d already established himself as a bona fide nutjob. The police wouldn’t let him have the blood he swore he needed to survive, had him locked up in a mental hospital instead.

So that’s why Niall’s trudging through the hallowed halls of Franklin High with a bunch of other teenagers whose sneakers squeak too loudly on the laminate floors. Their voices bounce off the metal lockers on either side of the hallway like the whole place is the inside of a set of clashing cymbals, and Niall chews on the inside of his cheek, squinting against the pain.

When his dad noticed and asked him what was with the face, Niall panicked and said something about not being able to see. Now, on top of being stuck with the stature of a fifteen year-old forever, he’s also got a pair of thick glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose. His sneakers still have the pizza sauce stains on them.

“Heads up, Horan!”

Niall’s head snaps up just in time to get a face full of something soft and warm, and smelling achingly of virile young man. Niall’s stomach rumbles, and he swallows and carefully pulls his lips down over his fangs before he reaches up and pulls the hoodie out of his eyes. He can smell the tang of metal on the air, and sort of see it, too. It looks like a heat wave in the desert, the air shimmering as though Niall’s bloodlust has liquidated it. All he has to do is reach out and he could –

He shakes his head, squeezes his eyes shut, and pops himself with the rubber band around his wrist.

“Sorry about that. Alright there, Neil?”

It’s the voice that has Niall looking up before he’s quite sure he’s schooled his features into the benign smile he makes sure to wear all the time. This close, Niall can see the acne dotting Louis’s face like a page of gibberish Braille, and he can smell his breakfast on his warm, wet breath – toast, and tea – and the sweat curdling his sweet scent. Niall’s stomach rumbles again.

“Didn’t break your glasses, did I?” Louis goes on placidly. He’s wearing a sort of half-smile, the tips of his canines peeking past the safe edges of his lips, and Niall tilts his head. Is that what Niall’s fully extended fangs look like? No wonder people act sort of…entranced. They’re…entrancing.

Louis raps sharply on the top of Niall’s head. “Hello,” he says pleasantly. Niall pings to the laughing, almost teasing tone in his voice. “Anybody in there?”  

Niall laughs and tucks his head down, hiding a blush his circulatory system is hard-pressed to supply anymore. “Sorry,” Niall says. “Zoned out.”

“Yeah, well, first period econ will do that to anybody,” Louis comments.

Niall hums noncommittally. He likes Mrs. Sheridan, their teacher, and more than that he likes the numbers. Clean, pure, unchanging. And a little magic; it’s science that put people in space. Before the accident, Niall had been thinking of studying math in college. Now, he’s just trying to graduate without beheading any of his classmates.

“Sorry about the face full of jacket,” Louis finally says. He reaches back blindly and brings forth a tall, gangly kid with a head full of untidy curls. “Harold, here, has the sense of a baby gorilla.”

“Hey,” his friend, Harold, says, mildly.

Niall glances at him quickly, mindful of the fangs still slowly receding back into his gums. It feels a little like there’s something caught in his teeth _all the time,_ which is only about half as maddening as you’d think. He’s mindful of the freak reaction he sometimes gets at a particularly good scent. Some high schoolers just have to worry about popping a stray boner. Niall’s got to worry about going full Dracula. It’s a bit much, really. He curls his fingers anxiously in the strap of his messenger bag and uneasily shifts his weight from foot to foot.

He’s heard of Harry, and Louis, actually. In a town as small as theirs, everyone has. Harry and his sister transferred in late last year when their mom married the geography teacher, who’s known to show up to lecture in full costume and bring his students cupcakes on Fridays.

Louis’s from one of the old schools down near the water. There was a rumor Louis got himself kicked out of his old school for setting his locker on fire. Niall never quite got the full story, but looking at Louis now, he wouldn’t doubt it.

Neither of them were here for Niall’s getting bit at the end of last school year, thankfully. The last thing a fresh vampire wants is a load of people shoving their faces close to his to see the gnarly mess of bruises on his neck. Niall remembers expecting his cheeks to be absolutely _scalding_ when he overheard a girl murmur to her friend, “Looks like a lot of hickeys to me,” and touching his face to find out he was stark cold.

Harry really does sort of smell like bananas. “Hi,” Niall says.

“Walk you to class?” Louis asks. He steps forward and closes his hand around Niall’s elbow, steering him through the crowd of teenagers milling about the hallway before second period like a little wooden vampire boat through the water. Niall lets him.

“Uh, sure,” Niall says. He readjusts the way his bag is sitting on his shoulder and casts about for something to say. “You excited for grad?” he asks.

Louis rolls his eyes and lets out a huff. It blows his fringe straight up off his forehead and Niall can see it, in that split second, the way Louis will grow up. Grow old. The way his face will narrow and hollow out, and his eyes will come out full force. He’s going to be a real stunner.

Niall, meanwhile, will still be fifteen. His stomach rumbles, again. “Sort of,” Louis says. “I’ve got to do a couple years here at the community college before I can transfer out – piss broke, you know, and I’ve got all these sisters I’ve got to watch out for or they’d probably lose their heads – but yeah, I reckon it’ll be alright. What about you? You’re headed off to some smart school, I reckon.”

“Er,” Niall says.

No. He hadn’t applied. Anywhere, actually. Nobody knows, not even Bobby.

“So, listen,” Louis says. “Before you blow this popsicle stand and leave us all behind, what do you say to going to the carnival with me?”

Niall nods agreeably. “Sure, man. Me and Sean and Willie were planning to go on Thursday after school – what?” he asks. He can smell it on Louis better than he can interpret his expression. Happiness has a smell like the first step out your door on a Saturday afternoon, where the whole day’s open and your friends are all free and anything can happen. Whatever Louis’s feeling right now, it smells more like cow pies cooking in the sun, or spoiled milk.

A light pink flush dawns across the bridge of Louis’s nose and his cheeks. For the first time, hunger’s not the first thing Niall thinks of. He watches the blush spread like ice over a window pane, and he just feels…happy. No, pleased. Maybe fond is a better word.

“No, I,” Louis says. He pulls Niall aside right next to Niall’s next class, English Lit. How does Louis even know what Niall’s next class is? “I was thinking, like,” he bites his lip, and Niall’s stomach swoops in a new and particularly interesting way, “just you and me.”

_YES!_ Niall wants to shout. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” he says.

Louis’s face falls. “Oh,” he says. He drops his hand and steps back, all his boisterous confidence disappeared, like a hermit crab inside its shell. “Sorry, then.”

“I – ” Niall starts, and stops. What, exactly? He might could eat him alive? Worse, he might fall for him and what, how long would it take for Louis to notice Niall still looks like the awkward “when they were young” section of someone’s wedding reception. Except that’s Niall’s life, now, always. It’s just not something Niall’s going to have. He doesn’t know much about this whole immortal vampire thing, but he figured out that rule pretty fast.

Actually, he might’ve learned more from Twilight than he thought.

“No, don’t worry about it,” Louis fakes a laugh. “Just thought I’d ask.” He slaps Niall on the shoulder, not too gently. “I’ll see you around, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Niall mumbles. He replays his and Louis’s conversation in his head the entire day, wondering if he could’ve said something different, could’ve ended it differently. Every single time he comes back to the simple state of his existence, and then he has to remind himself to be grateful he didn’t die that evening on his own stoop. Instead, he’s got this. English Lit homework, yearbook committee, and vampirism.

Bobby’s not yet home from work when Niall jimmies the lock in the door, so he makes a beeline back to his room, fires up their ancient lumbering desktop, and logs into the message room he shares with Liam.

Liam’s from a little town in the middle of nowhere, USA, not unlike Niall. He runs cross country in the mornings, and helps his dad move peoples’ house on the weekends, and does research watching vampire movies and playing World of Warcraft with Niall. (The WoW is just for fun.)

_Liam: happy friday!! howre u??_

_Niall: lame,_ Niall taps back, slowly. Then he deletes the text and starts again. _Brooding,_ he sends instead.

_Liam: :((( ??!?_

_Niall: hs stuff,_ Niall sends. _Vampire readjustment stuff,_ he amends. That’s what he and Liam started calling it when Niall messaged him to let him know a crazy dude just tried to take a bite out of his carotid. And then that Niall had almost done the same to the neighbors’ cat who always comes round for the scraps Bobby brings home from work. That had been a chat for the record books, probably.

_Liam: :( srry dude_

_Liam: wanna play?_

So Niall settles down behind the monitor, cracks the lid off a bottle of cow’s blood Bobby’s coworker, Janice, slid under the counter to Niall last time Niall popped in to visit his dad. She doesn’t ask why he needs it, and he doesn’t offer.

When Peter Parker got bitten by the radioactive spider, or whatever made that thing so whack, he got hot overnight and learned to swing from New York City tallest skyscrapers. When Niall got bit by a rabid dude, he lost most of his body blood content and gained the ability to smell Hungry Ed’s Food World from six blocks away. Nobody is ever that hungry for Hungry Ed’s, Niall knows. It smells terrible.

What he does get is this: free time. Turns out the old myth about vampires not sleeping is true, so Niall’s binged everything remotely interesting on Netflix, done the whole term’s reading, plowed through more than his share of the library’s space science books, and learned to pick his way through a stumbling rendition of “Champagne Supernova.”

Most everybody else has already given up on Pokemon Go, but it gives Niall something to do and a way to get out of the house from the particularly boring hours of three to five a.m., so he’s out expanding his Pokedex when he decides to take a break and pop into the corner store for some gum and a Coke. Do vampires ever have to visit the dentist? Niall should look into that.

He drops a quarter trying to cram his change into his pockets. Niall stops, and sighs, and kneels to pick it up. When he lifts his head, he finds Louis’s friend Harry staring at him from across the street.

“Shit!” says Niall. Then, “What’s up, man?” He edges across the street to Harry. In the daytime, this part of town is usually thriving. In the predawn hours, it’s blessedly quiet, free of people. Niall loves people; he just hates wanting to eat them.

Harry stares at him unblinkingly, his light green eyes laser-focused, tractor beam-like. Then he blinks, and his shoulders drop, and he offers Niall a lopsided smile. “Sorry. I thought I recognized you.”

“Yeah, I…we’ve known each other, like, two years.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, so…”

“Oh, right. I’m on my way to the bakery. We’re making scones this morning. Blackberry. You want to come?”

“I…alright,” Niall shrugs.

He hops up on the stainless steel counter and watches Harry fastidiously tie an apron over his front and a bandanna over his hair. Dawn breaks as carefully as an egg into the bakery’s kitchen. Niall watches the blond highlights in Harry’s hair light up and smells the room fill with the scent of baking bread and butter, and he feels more at ease than he has in a while.

Harry waits till Niall’s nose-deep in a warm, buttery scone before he says, “So, how come you won’t go out with Louis?” Politely, he waits for Niall to stop sputtering crumbs all over the place. 

“Why won’t you?” Niall counters.

Harry wrinkles his nose. “He’s like my brother.”

“Do you have any brothers?”

“No, I have a sister – don’t change the subject,” Harry admonishes him.

Niall looks at Harry’s soft, almost babyish face. “We’re about to graduate,” Niall finally says. “Just don’t seem like good timing.”

“Time isn’t real,” Harry says gravely.

Niall doesn’t know what to say to that.

“See you later,” Harry says, when he sees Niall out. Niall has just enough time to go home, sneak in through his window, and see his dad off to work. “Have fun at the carnival with your friends.”

“Yeah, maybe – maybe we’ll see you,” Niall says.

Harry grins. “You never know.”

School passes in a series of leapfrogging moments. Niall keeps looking for Louis in the hallway between classes, but if he knows Niall’s schedule well enough to lead him around, he knows it well enough to avoid him. His classes pass in a blur of wondering if he’ll see Louis amongst the rest of their classmates.

He doesn’t.

Niall’s been going to the carnival every year since he was a little kid. It’s the same every year: carnies bring the thundering handful of carnival rides into town, as well as a little petting zoo, and two rows of booth games. Niall tries hooking a ring around the array of bottles for old times’ sake, but it’s not quite as much fun as when he was a kid. It’s like more of the glitter comes off this, and places like it, the older Niall gets. He’s started wondering about it. Where does all the magic go? Maybe it turns people into vampires.

There’s a house party Friday night. There’s almost always a house party somewhere, because the town they live in isn’t big enough to have all-ages clubs and the YMCA got shut down for breaking, like, seventeen million health code violations last year.

Tonight, the party is in Patty Da Silva’s basement. There’s a proper keg spewing cups of lukewarm beer into red plastic cups, half a bag of chips on a folding card table, and a game of beer pong in full swing when Niall arrives.

The tatty brown couch has been pushed up against the wall to make room; right now, it’s laden with almost half a dozen of Niall’s classmates in various states of sobriety. The homecoming king and queen are making out on the washing machine when Willie lets Niall in and presses a cup into his hand.

The bass is already thundering through Patty’s cannibalized car stereo system, so Niall slurps down three cups of beer in quick succession to dull the onslaught to his oversensitive ears.

Sometimes he feels like everybody else is living on a different wavelength than he is, or like everybody else is a part of the fabric of their lives here – Harry at the bakery, the couple making out on the washer, the kids sorting through Patty’s mom’s old record collection – and Niall’s just floating along the surface. He’s there, touching it, but he’s not a part of it.

“I’m going to get some air,” Niall has to shout into Willie’s ear to make himself heard over the din. Willie nods and shoots him a thumbs-up, so Niall crushes his cup in his hand and piles it on top of the overflowing stack in the bin.

The downstairs bathroom is locked and Niall can hear kids giggling inside, so he aims for the stairs and lets himself into the toilet upstairs. It opens onto Patty’s bedroom, so Niall wanders in before he can think about it. He’s known her since they were little kids, so the clutch of stuffed animals piled in the corner and the pinion for the state college on the wall are as familiar to him as his own room. She has pictures on the wall of herself and Ralph, her prom date, and her parents’ wedding photo, and her senior photo up the hill next to the park where the wildflowers grow. Half their graduating class had their photos taken there.

Niall looks at Patty’s wall and thinks, this is now. But it’s not. It’s already receding into the past, almost out of reach. 

A breeze rustles Niall’s hair, and he can smell something familiar on the wind. He pokes his head out of the open window and, seeing nothing, throws his leg over the sill and climbs out.

Louis’s sat on the edge of the roof with a lit cigarette between his fingertips. He looks up when Niall carefully draws his other leg up over the sill. “Not here to jump out, are you?”

“I don’t think a two story fall would kill you,” Niall says. Louis just looks at him. Niall laughs. “Christ, no, I’m not jumping.”

“Want a smoke?”

“Mm,” Niall says. He knows he shouldn’t, but…why not? “Sure,” he says. He sits down beside Louis on the cold, gritty roof tiles and accepts the cigarette. He takes a big, deep draw and lets it out slowly, letting his eyes shut at the end. He opens his eyes to find Louis staring at him. “Why aren’t you at the party?” he asks.

Louis throws Niall a grin. “Who says this isn’t a party?”

“C’mon, Louis,” Niall murmurs.

Louis takes a sharp drag from the cigarette. Then, “Everybody’s talking about going away to all these, like, fancy schools.” He shrugs stiffly. “It’s whatever, you know. It’s fine.” He falls silent. “Do you ever feel like you’re standing still, and everybody else is just,” he draws his arm back, and then mimes lobbing a baseball. Niall tips his head up and imagines watching it fly over the undulating sea of suburban rooftops in the town where he grew up. “Right past you.”

“No,” Niall deadpans.

Louis laughs.

Right now, though, Niall thinks. Right now, not so much. “Can I get another hit?”

“Sure.” Louis hands the cigarette back to him. He and Louis smoke the cigarette down to the filter, and then it’s all quiet between them in spite of the bass drifting up through the floorboards. Across town, a siren wails, and the bell in the old church tower tolls unevenly. Graduation’s looming, and everybody will scatter to different colleges, or jobs, or just making good on promises they swore to each other to make it out of this town. Someday, perhaps even someday soon, Niall will leave this place, too. But not just yet. 

Niall turns his head to find Louis looking at him. “Ready to get back?” Louis asks.

“Yeah. You?” Louis nods, pulls his legs up onto the roof and makes to stand. Niall accepts the hand he’s offered, and Louis pulls him to his feet. There’s a harrowing moment where Niall’s balance tips to and fro like a boat on the waves, and then Louis steadies him, and Niall manages to dredge up enough blood to blush when he laughs. He leaves his hand in Louis’s, and they go back in.


	9. 'til the tune ends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> canon compliant narry wtih light angst warning for things you forgot to say

Niall gets the phone call while he’s stood in line waiting to get through customs in Heathrow. He’s got four solid black guitar cases, a couple of mics, and his in-ear kit with him, and the line is taking absolutely ages. Usually accepting unknown phone numbers is a big no-no, but this is his work phone, and if he doesn’t talk to someone soon, he’s going to go mental and land himself on the no-fly list for sure. 

“Hi,” he hears, a slow, drawling voice. Niall actually stops dead with his messenger bag slung suffocatingly across his chest and his glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose. “Hello?” 

“Hey,” Niall answers finally. He shakes his head. “Hello, how are you?” 

Harry laughs. It sounds different than it used to, Niall notices. At least he remembers the way it used to be. “We’re not doing an interview, mate, relax.” He deepens his voice and follows up with, “Though I suppose we could. How are you doing, Niall Horan? Where are you at, you globetrotting superstar?” 

Niall says, “Fuck off,” mainly on instinct, and is relieved when Harry just laughs again. 

He starts moving again by degrees, like the second hand of a clock stuttering to keep ticking, or the rusted Tin Man grinding through his gears. Niall wrestles the strap of his heavy carry-on off over his head and sets it down by his feet. He pulls his cap off and runs a hand through his hair, a nervous habit he never quite did away with. “I’m in Heathrow, actually, at the minute. Customs is taking a fecking age and a day.” 

Harry hums. “Your knee?” he asks, in that quiet, reserved voice that means he hasn’t forgotten how much Niall hated having everyone worry about him. Don’t talk about how bad it hurts until the day’s work is done was the rule around camp, and then it’d expanded to include so many things that by the end Niall wasn’t sure what was left to talk about. “Flying was always hard on you.” 

“It’s not so bad,” Niall just says. “What’re you up to, Harry?” 

Harry draws a deep breath. “I happen to have some work to do,” he says, “and I happen to know someone with a studio.” 

The customs line finally starts moving. Niall watches the guitars he carried and wore onstage for eight straight months of grinding, exhausting, exhilarating touring be put through the airport’s scanners. He bites the rough edge of his chapped cuticle. “I’m literally in the airport on my way home from tour, Haz.” 

Typically, Harry just waits. 

“I’ll call you,” Niall says. He can hear the smile in Harry’s voice when he rings off. Niall slides his phone back into his pocket in time to warn the bloke in the gray security uniform, “Watch that, that’s a Les Paul!”

***

Niall takes home his guitars and suitcases full of clothing and souvenirs and shit he didn’t even know he owned, like a shot glass from Texas and a broken pair of sunnies from a music festival. It takes him a few days to get it all sorted out, washed, and put away in his London house. The house is always surprisingly quiet without Willie lying about snacking on the couch or filling the room with a running commentary on all the things Niall missed while he was away, and Niall misses him with the same poignant, aching homesickness that touched so many of the songs he sang onstage every night. 

He closes his eyes now, while he’s alone in a pair of cutoff trackies in the middle of his living room with a pile of laundry to be folded on the couch, and all of that drops away. The warmth of a spotlight washes over his face and hands, and every time, Niall thinks that this must be what it feels like to live in an eternal summer. The house lights go down, the stage lights go on, and it’s a blue-skied sunshiny day as long as Niall’s onstage. 

He and the audience hesitate, breathing in each other’s sweat and the nameless smell of a lot of people in not a lot of space. He can feel the energy in the air like a meteorologist predicting sudden hail, and tonight, everybody’s waiting for him, breathless, at the edge. All he has to do is jump first, and they’re off. 

Niall goes to stroke the opening chords to his first song, and the vision falls away. He’s stood in his living room, alone, with a heap of cooling laundry and six months’ worth of golf saved up on his telly. 

Niall goes about his errands and catches up with his friends and goes to whatever gig’s playing in town just for a taste of the old magic. Little more than a month into his break, he calls Harry.

***

Harry drags his fingers over the top of the baby grand piano stood atop several layers of dusty carpets. The studio is caught somewhere between the muted, soundproof recording booths of old, and the ambience you’re more likely to hear today. Niall’s already propped the door to the recording booth open with a wooden chair and cracked open the window at the back of the sound booth by dint of a lot of elbow grease, and it’s started feeling less claustrophobic already.  

Niall likes the little studio he owns with Bressie, who’s out running a marathon or growing a vegetable garden or giving a motivational speech or one of the other thousand things he does to inject a little more happiness into his tiny corner of the world. Niall didn’t have a lot to do with it in its early days, but since he’s back in the motherland, he’s spent a lot of timing rearranging instruments the way he likes them. 

He overhauled the studio’s minimalist sound tech system and replaced it with something with a bit more _oomph_ , brought in as many of his own guitars as will fit on the walls, and put in invoices for the kind of vintage gear he’s always wanted to work with. He spent one particularly memorable afternoon when the studio was more or less finished crooning into the vintage microphone, doing his best Frank impression, and he’s sort of intrigued by the sound, even if he hadn’t kept any of the tapes. 

The wooden piano bench creaks promisingly under Harry’s weight when he drops down onto it. Harry drifts his long, ringed fingers over the keyboard. He plays a series of haunting, quivering notes in a desultory sort of way, and then he looks up at Niall with a smile scrunching up the corners of his eyes. Harry’s always smiled the most in his eyes. “If you could be a place…” he trails off. 

“Let me guess,” Niall says. “I’d be this little studio?” 

“Nah,” Harry says, without explaining. “But you’d maybe sleep here, or something.” He raises an eyebrow at Niall. “Tell me you haven’t.” 

Niall’s spent the night on too many recording studio couches all over the world to argue with Harry. He leans against the piano and plays back Harry’s little broken chord. It’s strange existing in the same space as Harry again, especially alone. Harry’s always owned the room the moment he walked into it, whatever he liked to believe (and usually it was that he did, in fact, own the room), but Niall doesn’t feel the stamp of Harry’s possession on himself like he used to. 

“You know I have,” Niall says, and realizes Harry didn’t, actually. It’s a strange thing to realize that the people who used to know you best now have to guess that what they remember is still true. It catches Niall’s breath a little, for reasons he can’t explain. His ma and dad, green Ireland, the guitar, Frank’s operatic voice on a scratchy record, and One Direction; these were things Niall thought permanent. But Bobby’s got his second hip replacement coming up soon and even Mullingar isn’t the same every time Niall comes back to it, and the fixed points in his universe have never really stopped moving.

Harry looks around at the studio Niall put so much time and energy into fixing up. “Want to go get a drink?” he asks. 

Niall sags in relief. “Christ, yes.” 

Three drinks in, Harry’s still a flirty, handsy drunk, his lips stained a bright red, his eyelids lowered to half-mast. Niall threads his way through the crowd and pushes his way up to the bar to order a couple of drinks, and the barman, one of his old school friends, gives Niall a smile. “Someone’s doing alright,” he says. 

“Every damn time,” Niall murmurs under his breath. “It’s two drinks, Mike,” he says, a definite note of plaintiveness in his voice. 

Mike just hands over the beers with a laugh. Drunken Irish people stagger into Niall and send the foamy tops of his pints sloshing over the side and onto the stained wooden floor. Niall slides back into the booth across from Harry with something like relief. 

Harry “I don’t drink beer” Styles immediately claims his glass. He tosses his head back greedily, the golden length of his throat exposed, and it’s only how well Niall knows Harry that keeps him from turning pink. If Niall finds an eternal summer onstage, then Harry carries one with him, a lifelong prisoner of the stage of his own life. 

Niall watches Harry set his empty glass down with a satisfied sigh, his eyes all the brighter. Half-amused, half-something else, Niall lets Harry reach out and snare Niall’s hand between his clammy palms. “Do you remember,” Harry starts, “the first time you got me drunk in an Irish bar?” 

Niall rolls his eyes and laughs at the same time. He props his head up on his other hand, and makes no move to shake Harry off. “You mean the first time you got yourself pissed in an Irish pub? Sure I do.”

“We went to a party,” Harry says, all fondness. “There was almost a fight.” 

“I remember,” Niall says. A prickle of anxiety climbs his spine. Harry has that look on his face, or in his eyes, like he might be about to cry. 

Patting his hand clumsily, Harry says, “Of course you do. ‘Course.” 

Something in his tone rubs Niall the wrong way. “What?” 

“What?” Harry asks, though the look he shoots Niall – equal parts apologetic and unrepentant – is all too easy to read. He’s been giving Niall that look every time some young thing comes up to him with a slip of paper and a pen in their shaking hands, and Niall’s been quelling his anger all evening, ‘cos this is one of his oldest friends and he _missed_ Harry, but he’s not beyond dragging him out to the street. Niall doesn’t give a fuck how many autographs or selfies Harry gets asked for, especially not from Niall’s own hometown. Doesn’t Harry get that Niall’s not jealous of awe he’s worked hard not to cause people? 

“I asked you first,” Niall says, and waits to see what Harry will do. 

Harry swallows and casts his eyes up to the dingy bar light. It’s the oldest trick in the book to keep from crying. “Do you think they’d let us sit in the garden for a bit?” 

So Niall leads Harry round to the back of the pub, where there’s a single cement bench and a couple of wooden picnic tables carved from hell to Sunday with the names of peoples’ greatest loves and losses. Harry tucks his hands into the pockets of his posh ankle duster and turns his face up to the stars, and something swoops in Niall’s stomach, right on cue. 

Everybody and their nan thinks Harry’s handsome, but so few get to see him like this, too caught up in his thoughts to mind his expression. He looks older than he should, and tired, and every inch the pop star everybody always wanted him to be. Niall wonders if he’s happy.

“I didn’t mean it mean,” says Harry at last, like they’re little boys in the schoolyard. “I was just saying, ‘cos, like. Look at you.” He gestures to Niall, who looks down at his white t-shirt and skinny jeans. “Christ, I hate you sometimes, you know? I saw you just own it live and then there you were, at home in that studio, here. Why can’t I do that? Why can’t I have both?” 

“I don’t…” Niall starts, stops. He thinks he does, though. “What do you want me to say, Harry?” 

Harry shrugs expansively. He sits down on the stone bench next to Niall, though, so Niall does what comes easy. He puts his arm around Harry’s shoulders, and Harry leans in. The top of his curly head brushes the stubble on Niall’s chin, and his hair smells exactly the same, like strawberries and vanilla. “I don’t hate you,” Harry murmurs lowly. 

“Yeah, you do,” Niall sighs. “‘S okay. You love me more.”

Harry sniffles. “What are you thinking about?” 

He’s thinking about that audience poised on the edge, just waiting for him to take the plunge first, and how he’d thrown himself headlong into the music. He’s thinking about coming off a marathon eight-month tour and imagining the music swelling around him like a church choir at Christmas, and how he’ll never shake wanting that, ever, again and again and again. Maybe Niall would hate him, too, if only he hadn’t known exactly what he was getting himself into.

“The lyrics to ‘Dancing in the Dark,’” Niall answers honestly. “Classic Sinatra.”

“Prick,” Harry says, sounding not unfriendly. He braces himself with his hand on Niall’s knee and pushes himself up a bit, so that he’s not hunched over into Niall’s chest so much. And just like that, he’s one of the most familiar people in the world again. He just had to get a bit closer. “Would you still work with me?” Harry asks, like it’s a hypothetical.

Niall very carefully doesn’t look at Harry. He doesn’t want Harry to know what he wants, so that Harry won’t want to give it to him. “Did before,” he says. It doesn’t really feel like there was ever a before, actually. Niall could swear he’s known Harry forever. 

Maybe that’s why he doesn’t say anything when Harry squeezes his knee and drags his palm up Niall’s thigh, his eyes turning hungry. Harry kisses him slow but deep, his fingertips digging into Niall’s jeans like he’s afraid of being torn away. His stubble rasps against Niall’s and stings, and Niall lets Harry kiss him till he gets his fill. 

Harry tips his forehead against Niall’s, their breath mingling in the air between them. “I don’t hate you,” Harry repeats, like that’s the important part. 

Niall waits to see if he’ll say anything else, but Harry’s eyes are closed, and he’s not quite sure what he’s waiting for, anyway. “I know,” he says, and ignores the ache of disappointment in his chest.


	10. back to you (pt 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> canon compliant slightly future fic (part 1 of 2)

“The song’s about me,” Harry says flatly, the moment he picks up. 

“Oh,” says Nick. He doesn’t sound very surprised. “Well, do you like it?” 

Harry wraps his coat a little tighter around himself and slouches a little lower in the front seat of his blacked-out SUV. Bluetooth plays his phone call over the car’s surround sound, and it’s soothing in only the way Nick can be, sometimes. His is the voice of mainstream pop radio, and God, which are the same thing, really. 

“Do I like it? It’s about moving on,” Harry says. He picks at a loose thread in the seam of his jeans. It’s about a lot more than that, actually. But that’s the main thing. So long, goodbye, farewell. “Thanks for the memories,” he mumbles.

“I’m going to pretend you said that in your best Fall Out Boy circa 2007 voice,” says Nick primly. Harry groans. Nick laughs, then says, “If I remember, right, Haz, it goes ‘ _Everything comes back to you.’_ Not ‘fuck off, you wanker.’” 

Harry hums. No, but this he knows: moving on starts with wanting to let go. 

“So what are you going to do?” Nick asks, practical-minded to a fault. 

“What am I going to do?” Harry repeats. 

“Hold on, it’s just that I think there’s an echo,” Nick says. There comes a sound like him rubbing his phone all over his shirt. Harry scowls, realizes Nick can’t see it, and is in the middle of a “Heeyy,” when silence betrays Nick’s listening again. “Call him,” Nick finally says. “‘S what I would do.” 

Harry very nearly asks Grim why he’s let so many loves slip through his fingers, then, if this is what he’d do. Almost. And then he remembers that he might just be one of Nick’s lost loves, and he catches himself, and he’s proud, for a moment, that he’s grown up. Harry straightens up in his seat and catches sight of himself in the rear view mirror. 

Ever since the Another Man photoshoot, he’s been expecting to see a different face looking back at him. No, not a different face. A different way of wearing it. He’s expecting a young Mick Jagger to look back at him, or maybe the fashionable, flawlessly confident long-haired version of himself he only dreamt of as a kid. Harry’s watched a lot of versions of himself go by and he feels a performer’s comfort in each - all except this one. This one, he knows, squinting to see his crow’s feet squeeze into existence, is just one that _might_ happen. 

“Okay,” says Harry. Nick rings off with a simple, loving “Good luck,” and Harry scrunches back down in his seat while the phone rings. Niall’s habit of chewing his nails used to drive Harry absolutely bonkers; he hated sitting next to his friend and bandmate and sometimes something a little extra, a little more, and watching him pick himself apart. 

Now Harry finds himself listening to his phone ring and chewing on the newly-calloused pads of his own fingers. The callouses are bizarre, tough and insensitive, but Harry presses his tooth against the skin and feels it ache for a moment. There. 

“‘Lo?” Niall picks up. Always frustratingly casual. 

“Hi,” Harry says. The connection between them seems to shift and mutate as Niall takes in who’s rung him. It feels so far away, and altogether quite warm and intimate, all at once. “Wanker,” he says warmly. 

Niall laughs. Harry wonders where he is, what he’s doing. He wonders why he called. He’s up enough with Niall’s social media to know he’s been harping on about London lately; enough to know that Niall’s preparing to miss it for a good long while. It’ll make a good song. 

Before he loses his nerve, Harry says, “A surprise drop - you fucking madman.” 

“Did you like it? Really?” Niall asks, like that’s really a question. 

“Yes,” says Harry. Then, more honestly, “It breaks my heart.” 

Niall laughs. “Yeah,” he says. “It breaks mine too.” 

Harry closes his eyes. Silence fills the car to the brim, thick and suffocating. Part of him wants to hang up now; they can leave things just like this, dangling from this moment, forever. But Niall’s moving on and Harry knows it’s not fair to keep him hesitating any longer. He’s like a fish on the line, or Harry is. Reel him in or cut him loose. One or the other. “You break my heart,” he murmurs. 

“Yeah,” Niall says, soft. “You break mine, too.” 


	11. back to you (part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> canon compliant slightly future fic (part 2 of 2)

Harry’s sat backstage in his dressing room when his tour manager, Sam, knocks on the open door frame. “You’ve got a guest, Harry.” 

Harry starts to shake his head. He’s not quite in the mood. Sometimes, even after all these years, it takes him ages to get comfortable in his skin again after having performed in front of a crowd that made him feel like he was going supernova. All those bright pinpricks of cell phone battery lights might well be shooting out of the cracks in his skin as something inside of him implodes into a neutron star. 

He likes being himself, too, and the soft terrycloth robe draped over his bare shoulders, and the warmth of the vanilla candle burning on his vanity. It just doesn’t make him feel like a god, or a pop star playing at a rock god, and he’ll miss it while he waits for the next opportunity to direct the universe around his personal gravitational pull.

“Who is it?” he asks instead. 

“Your mam,” says a voice all too familiar. Two things happen at once: Harry’s stomach sinks, and suddenly – even though he hadn’t known it – all his homesickness for his mum’s voice and his sister’s gentle teasing and LA’s broad sunshine fade away. Niall is so many things to him; he’s also a brother. 

Harry stands up out of his seat and goes into a swagger, slicking his hair back with the palm of his hand. It’s all muscle memory. He sees Niall, stood in the doorway in that flat cap he’s been wearing for years, a dark fur-lined coat, and a pair of battered skinny jeans, and he draws up short. There’s no reason for him to play the pop star for Niall except that he can’t quite remember what he’d do if he wasn’t. 

Of course, Niall tears up the script Harry’s frantically writing in his head by hobbling forward on his toothpick legs with his arms spread wide. He gives a laugh that feels faintly mocking, not that it stops Harry from tilting his head so Niall can tuck his face into his neck and sagging just the tiniest bit into his warmth so they’re the same height. “You look like a goddamn diva,” Niall snorts into his ear. His cackle softens into a real laugh, and Harry pulls away before he can melt any further and drop into a puddle at Niall’s feet. 

Harry smooths his hair back with his hand again, this time playing up the effect. “I’m a star, Niall,” he simpers. 

“You’re a cockatoo on speed,” Niall answers pleasantly. 

“Did you see the show?” 

“No,” says Niall. “I spent the whole gig on my phone playing Words With Friends and texting dear old Anne that her son was trying to impregnate me from the stage. ‘Course I saw it.” 

A terribly embarrassing screech bubbles out of Harry’s throat, and he giggles. Then he bites the inside of his cheek and casts his eyes about. His musicians are around here somewhere, a real authentic sort of lot who wear mostly black and eyeliner and talk a lot about wine while they drink tequila on nights out. Part of him – a not insignificant part, a part he’s been thinking a lot about lately – wants them to take him seriously. 

Sometimes Harry hangs out on their tour bus and listens to them talk about books he hasn’t read yet and art he hasn’t seen. It reminds him of hanging around Grimmy when Nick was so much younger and Harry was still just a kid. It reminds him of a life he never had – a life he never particularly wanted – but he thinks of Gemma, and her grades that Harry could never quite match, and he feels certain there must be other versions of himself. Somewhere, in another universe, Harry went to uni, and he’s glad for it. 

Mostly Harry’s happy he gets to do this, and make so many other people happy, even if it does leave him permanently confused about who he is. You can be a thousand different things to a million different people, but when they’re all gone, what’s left? Harry’s been thinking of taking another role when this tour is over. 

Niall pokes around Harry’s dressing room, probably looking for a beer. It makes Harry feel all squirmy and pleased and slightly worried that Niall’s going around touching all his things, marking them all up with his memory. For the longest time, Harry didn’t have anything that didn’t feel fresh out of the dusty volume of his own past. 

Harry hasn’t forgotten his and Niall’s last conversation, he’s just – not quite sure how to address it, or whether he ought to. He’s starting to think that whatever there might’ve been between them is just another version of himself he’s hung up like a suit on a rack, never to be worn again. He can go back and visit it, touch the fabric and smell the cologne and champagne, but it wouldn’t fit anyway. He’s starting to think he can let go. 

Still, he asks, “Did you like it?” 

Niall stops his perusal of Harry’s dressing room to turn neatly on his heels. He tucks his thumbs into his pockets, his broad shoulders an achingly familiar bit of architecture, like the house Harry grew up in or the fields back home where he still goes to lose himself a little. It can have been years, Harry thinks, and some part of him is still going to see the firm set of Niall’s shoulders, drape a guitar over the mental image, and push him off down the thrust stage to blast the chords to “Where Do Broken Hearts Go.” Some part of Harry is going to be on that stage, with him, watching him go. Knowing he’ll come back. 

He always comes back. 

“Now, I don’t mean to big up that head of yours, or make any promises,” Niall smiles, and bites his lip, “but I think you might’ve been born for this, Mr. Styles.”  

Harry knows he’s smiling in that way that makes him look about six years old, and he doesn’t stop it. Happiness is a serious thing, too. 

“Put a top on, I’ll buy you a beer,” Niall says, casual as anything. 

Harry hesitates only for a moment. He’s in town tonight, and tomorrow morning before dawn the bus will be rumbling down the highway for the next stop on the chain of cataclysms that is Harry’s life. (It’s a good life.)

He was planning to sleep early, be up for bus call, snooze on his bunk and then write some. But he’s only here for one night. He looks at Niall, who’s rooted so deeply in his past that Harry can’t possibly begin to untangle, or understand them, who takes little sipping peeks of Harry in fractured moments and sees probably more than anyone else would in a hundred years of pondering. Sometimes it’s the self you see in someone else’s eyes that you most want to be. 

It’s only one night. 

“I don’t drink beer,” Harry says. 

Niall rolls his eyes. “Okay, rock star.” He smiles, again, his blue eyes crinkling like the paint on a canvas cracks over time.

He lingers in the doorway poking at his phone while Harry puts on his favorite silky soft top and sprays a bit of cologne to offset the sweet stink of stage sweat.

“Right, then,” says Harry. Niall pockets his phone, and Harry thinks this is something he thought he left behind. And here it is in front of him in a slightly nervous boy, deeply embarrassing in only the way the most vulnerable loves can be, and Harry stops thinking about who he is. Right now, he’s a bloke going for a drink with his old friend. 

Niall says, “Don’t gotta tell me twice,” and slips into the hall to lead the way out of the labyrinthine backstage area. Harry waits a beat, watches him disappear around the corner, fluffs his hair, and follows him out.


	12. i swear i've been here before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> canon; set in fall 2016, the first time niall sees harry since the band went their separate ways. it's more awkward than he expects.

The first time Niall sees Harry since the band went on hiatus, they’re on a red carpet in LA. Niall had his money on seeing Harry in LA if for no other reason than the man lived there, duh. 

And if he’s being really honest with himself, then he also thought so because, well. If he and Harry are in the same place, ‘course they’re gonna run into each other. It’s like gravity, or magnetism. A law of the universe.

It’s more awkward than he expected it to be. 

Niall can see Harry down the stretch of red carpet rolled out in front of the newly reopened Microsoft Theater. Niall spent the better part of a night last week reading up on the history of the theater because he couldn’t sleep, so he knows it’s been kitted out with all sorts of naff shit like phone chargers in every seat and those hand dryers that blast air at your palms like airplane jets. Niall’s been in the venue himself to rehearse for his performance, and he doesn’t remember seeing any of that posh shit, just how sparkling clean the toilet bowl he nervous-puked his guts up in was. 

Niall smooths his palms down his black dress trousers, swallowing convulsively. He’s told so many reporters that he’s shitting his pants about this one-song gig so many times already this evening that even he’s a little weary of the note of panic in his voice. It’s not so strange answering questions or fielding rumors by himself as once it was, but sometimes – it’s silly to think, Niall’s not going to get maudlin– but sometimes he thinks, like. It’d be nice for there to be a couple of mates to his left and right to share the load, as it were. 

Then Niall thinks of Louis snapping Freddie babbling from home with a dumb the baby says good luck! caption that Niall screenshotted so fast you might’ve thought his phone was alight in his hand, and Liam’s around here somewhere, too, with a beaming Cher on his arm. When the next interviewer asks about the latest round of girlfriend rumors, Niall turns the conversation toward female artists and how much he’s liking the new Haim album. 

Niall’s manager’s waiting for him when Niall moves out of the spotlight to usher him along to the next stop, the next bank of repetitive questions and dazzling camera flashes. Niall chances a glance back at Harry, who’s watching him in that old unblinking way he has. Niall smiles before he can stop himself, and Harry looks away, one corner of his mouth lifting to dimple his cheek like the crease in the corner of a page left to mark the spot. 

Sue, Niall’s manager, tightens her grip around his elbow, so Niall goes. By the time he thinks to look for Harry again, he’s lost amid the thick flow of people in sparkling gowns and artfully ripped t-shirts pouring into the venue. 

Liam surfaces from the sea of people milling about backstage getting their makeup done and filming ad spots for vloggers and celebrity rumor sites with a smile on his face so wide that his eyes are almost slitted shut. “Christ,” Niall laughs, jerking out of his makeup artist’s grasp. Then he pulls Liam into a hug. 

Liam hugs back warmly. He still smells like tea and toast and sweat, which has effectively ruined tea and toast for Niall over the years. Suddenly he thinks he wouldn’t mind some, now and then. “Nialler,” Liam says warmly. His words are a puff of warm, wet breath on Niall’s ear, and Niall shivers and pulls away, fighting the urge to palm Liam’s stubbly cheek. “It’s so good to see you!” 

“You, too,” Niall agrees, drinking him in. Niall and Liam have traded the occasional text checking in or congratulating the other for his record deal, but they’ve kept it casual, like the way Niall keeps in touch with Louis. Now that the band’s not going and they don’t see each other every day, Niall doesn’t hear from them as much. It’s always strange to think about, but strangest at six o’clock in the morning when Niall’s body pulls him out of bed with a racking cough and he has to root through his pantry for a bag of raspberry green tea. It always used to be Liam’s favorite, Niall thinks every time he puts the kettle on to boil, but maybe it’s not anymore. Niall’s not asked him about it yet. 

Liam squeezes Niall’s arm, so Niall lets himself edge past the point of friendly company into Liam’s personal space, like they’re squished together on yet another too-small couch, or lined up to share a microphone and answer questions rapid-fire style. Liam doesn’t seem to mind. “Mad to be here without each other, isn’t it?” Liam asks, cutting to the heart of the thing. It forces a choked little laugh out of Niall. Eyes twinkling, Liam says next, “Are you nervous?”   

“Me?” Niall scoffs, telling himself to fill out his space better, don’t let the world crunch down on him too tight, like Bressie’s always advising him to do. “Christ, no. Done it a million times, haven’t we?” 

The smile that spreads across Liam’s face seems like it comes from two thousand miles away, or six years. Niall’s helpless to smile back. He’s about to say something so he won’t do something weird, like start singing Liam’s “Never Enough” riffs into his dweeby, soppy face, when Cher reappears. She slips her hand into Liam’s, then tucks herself under his arm, and Niall steps back to let her in.

“How about a selfie?” Liam asks, looking every bit as fresh and handsome as David Beckham on his best day, only better. “For old times’ sake.” 

Niall obliges. He looks down at his phone’s smudged screen and is unsettled, a little, by how old he and Liam look. Then he blinks, and pockets his phone, and gives him a quick “See you later, gotta get ready” that makes Liam roll his eyes and smile and nod, and feels a lot less unsettled. 

(Harry’s not backstage, not that Niall was looking.) 

Hair and makeup is a breeze, though Elli lingers over the clean starched shirt and tailored trousers they decided he’d wear onstage. “It looks great,” he tells her, his voice soft enough not to leave the dressing room. 

“You look great,” she says, then laughs. “I just want people to look at you and go, oh, I don’t know. ‘Oh, there he is.’” 

Niall hums the ‘Oh, it’s you,’ from the Pina Colada Song without thinking. Then, “Oh, here’s me?” 

“Yeah, like, you know,” Elli says, though Niall doesn’t, really. “There’s the guy we knew from that band; oh, doesn’t he look like he belongs up there? I missed him.” 

“I don’t think a shirt can say all that,” Niall offers weakly. His collar feels tight, all of a sudden, and he hopes Elli hasn’t noticed the way his palms have started sweating. 

“Darling,” she says, “mine do.” 

Elli finishes picking an invisible piece of lint off Niall’s shoulder, then fixes him with a firm smile. “All right then,” she says. 

“All right then,” Niall echoes.

A stage tech keeps Niall from rushing out onstage with a hand on his arm. Niall bounces on his toes and concentrates on keeping his teeth from chattering, his stomach a quivering, heaving mess, his mind like a bird’s, catching on every bright discordant thing. When the spotlight hits him, all of Niall’s nerves burn away. The hot stage lights warm the guitar strapped over his chest and the feeling of being onstage returns in a rush; it feels like he’s not just himself but everybody in the audience throwing his own energy back at him. Niall feels like a firework fizzling with light. 

He glances back for a reason even he himself couldn’t name, maybe to share a look with the stagehand or Elli like, Jesus, are you seeing this, mate?

Instead, he catches sight of Harry watching Niall’s performance. Niall can’t make out his face or anything, but he’d know those sloped shoulders if he was blind. 

The stage stops feeling quite so alone. Niall strums the guitar, his backing band kicks in, and everything else kicks off. 

After, when Niall’s manager’s done giving him play by play updates of his single climbing the charts and Elli’s done hugging Niall in her shirt to her, and Laura and Eoghan have rang to ask him to marry them, Niall changes back into his off-stage clothes. He’s just wiping off his half-melted stage makeup when a soft knock comes at his door. “‘M almost done, just gimme a sec, Sue,” Niall calls. 

“Not Sue,” a low voice answers. 

Niall rocks on his heels. He can count the number of times on one hand that Harry’s knocked before coming in anywhere Niall is. Niall clears his throat, throws a glance to his reflection in the mirror, and crosses to the door with his name stapled to the front to let Harry in. 

He has his hands folded behind his back like the proper weirdo he is, though his face softens when his eyes settle on Niall. “Hey,” Harry says.

“Hi,” Niall says. He hesitates for a split second wondering whether to pull him into a Liam-esque hug, but he hesitates too long, and the moment stretches out into awkwardness. Niall can’t help chewing at his cuticle.

“Can I come in?” Harry finally asks. 

“Yeah, ‘course,” Niall answers, then kicks himself for being so impolite. “I’ve got, like, water and stuff, if you want some?” 

Harry shakes his head. “I just came by to congratulate you,” he answers slowly. Jesus, Niall forgot how slow Harry talks, how deliberately. Lots of people keep themselves up with Insta posts and snaps and tweets, but Harry’s been mute for so long now that Niall reckoned he’d deleted the apps. Niall didn’t know he could forget the way Harry sounds.

“Thanks, mate,” Niall says, then hates how casual it sounds, so he tacks on an awkward, “I’m thankful for it, man,” that does nothing to make this conversation feel less like something between exes. Not that Niall’s got much of a frame of reference for that. 

The little dressing room feels so much smaller with Harry in it that Niall wishes he’d suggested stepping outside for their chat. He distracts himself getting a good look at Harry. His shoulders are curved forward familiarly, and his hair’s grown back around his face to cover the tips of his ears. He doesn’t look as rested as Louis, or as bright as Liam. “It’s been ages, hasn’t it?” Niall asks. “How long’s it been?” 

“I figure you’d know better than me,” Harry offers with a grin and a quick look that tells Niall he knows exactly when they last saw each other. It sends a pang of guilt shooting through Niall’s gut for no good reason, because phones work two ways, but this is Harry. Niall’s always had a soft spot for Harry. Harry fidgets with the hole in the knee of his jeans. “Anyway, I just wanted to come by and tell you that I enjoyed it. You’re great up there, Niall.” 

“Thanks,” Niall lets out on an exhale. He wants to ask Harry whether he noticed that flubbed note on the key change or whether he ran his words together too much over the second chorus, but Niall manfully restrains himself. Instead, he says, “It makes me excited as shit, you know? For the rest of the album, and the tour, and everything. Like. Can’t wait to go back out there.” 

“Top of the world,” Harry smiles. “Never coming back down.” 

“Shut up,” Niall laughs. Harry spins his ring around his finger, and Niall frowns at the top of his head. “That it?” he asks, his voice gentling of its own accord. 

Harry lets out a noncommittal hum. “Just threw me, I s’pose,” says Harry. “You’re really doing it.” 

Gently as he can, Niall says, “We all are.” 

“‘Course, I know,” Harry says, wrinkling his nose like _silly me_. He’s always been too smart to quite pull that one off. 

“We should get a drink with Liam later,” Niall says. “Catch up.” He didn’t mean to say it because he doesn’t really like the way it lines him and Harry up on one side and Liam on another, and Niall wants to be on good terms with all his ex-bandmates, wants things to be simple.

He’s always had a soft spot for Harry, though. 

“Harry?” 

“Yeah, no, ‘s just,” Harry scrunches up his face like he’s in pain. Niall has to lean over in his seat to see. “We said we’d be back,” Harry says finally. “All of us.” 

“Harry,” Niall says, soft, low. 

“Hate feeling like a liar.” 

“You’d rather just not say anything at all.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Harry asks sharply, wrenching his gaze away from his ring at last. 

Niall puts his hand over Harry’s. It takes more courage than he expected. “We said no plans, no regrets, remember?” 

“No, I know,” Harry says. He clears his throat and speaks carefully, and it occurs for the first time to Niall that he might’ve been speaking to a shielded version of his old friend all this time. Niall doesn’t honestly know. “I didn’t realize that I’d be losing you when the band went on break, as well.” Harry carefully straightens the frayed threads in the hole across his knee. 

This time, the guilt strikes like an anvil quashing Niall and pressing him down to the floor, like he’s no bigger than a flea. “You didn’t have to,” Niall offers weakly. Jesus. Niall hadn’t thought Harry would miss him, so he hadn’t let himself miss Harry, hadn’t even really worried about him. He had a film deal and then a record deal and Niall figured, well, that was that. Turns out when people tell you who someone is for long enough, they can really make you think they’re right. “Harry –”

Even Niall’s not sure what he would’ve said, maybe _You could’ve called me_ , too, or _I tried calling you on your birthday and you didn’t pick up_ , or maybe even, _What are we doing this for if we could’ve –_ but luckily, Harry stops him. 

“Ah, I’m terrible,” Harry smiles, then laughs. Niall can’t even tell if it’s a real smile. “Here you are smashing it, and I’m nattering on after you like your mum.” He stands up quickly, long-legged and maybe not as old as he looks, and Niall cranes his head back to look up at him. 

“Well done, again,” Harry says. He looks about an inch away from offering Niall his hand to shake. “I’m proud of you.” 

“Hey,” Niall catches him just before Harry slips out. “It’ll be your turn, soon, yeah?” 

“I’m just tired, Niall,” Harry says without looking at him. “Just tired, jetlagged – you know. I just wanted to tell you how well you’d done.” 

Niall closes his mouth, opens it, closes it again, his mind awhirl. “Harry,” Niall tries again, but he’s already gone. 

The next time Niall tries to ring Harry in the car on the way home from the Microsoft Theatre, his call goes straight to voicemail. Niall slips his phone back into his pocket and tips his head against the car window, and tries not to wonder what to make of it.


	13. in and out of my life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this one's a university au; niall's graduating, and harry isn't.

Niall sets his last final down on the proctor’s desk and lets the wooden door shut softly behind him like it has so many times before. He nods at Sam, who’s sat beside him through all of his upper division Spanish courses since they were nineteen, hitches his bag up on his shoulder, and makes for the old double doors and beyond, the quad. By the time he’s halfway across it’s started sinking in: he’s free. Niall checks to make sure no one’s watching, and then he lets himself give a little skip and kick his feet together. He comes down feeling elated. 

He dials Harry while he waits at the bus stop, one earbud tucked into his ear and the other one dangling from his collar. Niall only ever has two earbuds in when he’s trying to focus on his revisions, but those days are officially over now, and he likes it better like this anyway. He can hear the crickets chirping as afternoon gives way to evening, and the squeaking brakes of the campus bus system pulling up to a stop in front of him, and the soft crunch of his trainers biting into cement for one last loop from class to home. 

Harry’s laid out on his back in the middle of the kitchen when Niall unlocks the door to their “shabby chic” two-bedroom walk-up. Golden afternoon light pours in like honey through the window and colors Harry’s face shades of gold. Niall dumps his bag by the door and goes over to nudge Harry with his toes. 

Harry stirs awake from a proper doze, the maniac. “Oh, hey,” he smiles, when he sees Niall. “You’re back. How’d it go?” 

Niall shrugs. “Good,” he says. Great, he thinks. Harry reaches out and tucks his fingers under Niall’s jeans to circle them round his bare ankle. Harry’s strange, spontaneous touches used to make Niall jump, and then he decided not to make anything of them, but lately he’s started thinking they mean something again. 

Harry sneaks his fingers through the rips in Niall’s jeans to touch his knee when they go to the pub with their friends and cups the back of Niall’s neck when they’re oozing into the sofa together. Niall thinks he gets it. He hasn’t ragged on Harry for leaving the frying pan on the hob after making eggs for brekkie in weeks, he’s so cut up about moving out. They made up a little family between them. Sometimes Niall thinks it’s the only one he’s ever really known. 

“Get down here,” Harry says, tugging on the hem of Niall’s jeans, so he pulls away and rolls his eyes. 

“The floor is filthy.” 

“You mopped yesterday,” Harry points out. He makes his eyes big and doe-like. “C’mon, Nialler. For me? Please?” 

Niall traces the soft, plaintive lines of Harry’s face with his eyes. His hair is longer than when they met and he’s just about grown into that mouth, and Niall still wants to laugh every time he looks at him. “Nah,” says Niall, and goes to his room to kick off his jeans and unbutton his shirt. 

Harry follows him in just to flop facedown on Niall’s neatly bed. The sharp corners of his duvet come out a little bit and Niall knows the shirt he laid out earlier is getting wrinkled under Harry’s giant melon head, but he just scoffs and puts his old clothes in the hamper. “What’s the matter with you?” he asks. “Like a sloth – more than usual, I mean.” 

“I’m shoring up energy,” Harry says. “I’m well old to be partying with the Irish, you know.” Harry cracks one eye open to peek at Niall, and then he rolls over onto his back, smiling like the cat that ate the canary. When Harry pats the mattress, Niall doesn’t even hesitate to climb on beside him.

Niall’s ceiling is decorated with stick-on stars that he and Laura superglued up there two years ago. Things between them were so casual, and easy, that Niall didn’t notice that it was over as effortlessly as it’d begun. Niall’s not sure why that happened, either, but it’s not like anyone owes him an explanation, either. 

Harry was playing Florence and the Machine in the kitchen and the hauntingly lovely notes of Lungs come drifting into Niall’s room sweetly. Harry’s shoulder shifts in the corner of Niall’s eye, and then Harry’s fingertips drag over the back of Niall’s hand, into his palm, wriggling between his fingers. Niall snorts so quietly that even he can’t hear it and lets Harry hold his hand. 

“The lads will be here soon,” Harry murmurs eventually. He lifts his and Niall’s joined hands to check the time on Niall’s watch. “I’m making cheese dip and you have to put some trousers on.” 

Niall hums. He’s supposed to take down the stick-on stars to get their deposit back, but they’re superglued, so Niall’s not sure how he’s going to do it. He thinks maybe he’ll just leave them up there, instead. It’d feel nicer than ripping them down and painting over the spot like they’d never existed. “Don’t got to put on trousers,” he argues. “It’s just the lads.” 

“You know how excited I get when you break the chicken legs out, Niall,” Harry says, mildly. “That’s not for company.” Niall thinks if he lays here much longer he’ll go for a kip. His final paper, the last lab reports, his only remaining final exam. All done. Finished. Niall can’t believe it.

The room is lined with packing boxes they begged off Waitrose for free. Tomorrow he’ll start packing his stuff: the stick-on stars and the comforter bunched up beneath Niall’s back and the lampshade he bought at a charity shop for five bucks his first year because he didn’t know he’d keep it for another four. His whole life in this little room. If he lays right here, though, Niall can’t see the boxes at all. 

“Fine, whatever,” Niall says. He sits up and twists around to look down at Harry, who folds his hands under his head. “What’s that about cheese, then?” Niall asks, so Harry laughs and gets up, and Niall puts on the shirt he set aside earlier. It’s a little wrinkly, but. Not so much that it’s a problem. 

The cheese dip is boiling quietly on the hob alongside bowls of baked macaroni for Harry’s vegetarian friends and watermelon marinating in mojito by the time Willie and his girlfriend and Deo and Adam and Scott turn up with a case of beer. Niall spends the first part of the evening outside grilling burgers on the tiny grill he and Harry spent hours fixing. Well, really Niall tried to fix it, and Harry perched on the broken lawn chair and kept him company while he worked. The flat smells like grilled burgers and beer and Harry’s vanilla candles, and the whole place hums with conversation. It’s maybe Niall’s favorite version of their little house. 

He doesn’t see much of Harry, who keeps himself busy arranging a beer pong tournament he has no inclination toward participating in himself. It’s the last day of finals, Niall’s last real day of being a student, of not being a proper adult, and he spends most of it dancing badly in the middle of the living room with his friends. 

Niall learned how to party through the night with these people, but they start gently paring away by midnight. Packing, and graduation prep, and their families are in town for the ceremony. Even Niall’s not that thrashed, though. He’s got packing to do all day tomorrow, and picking up his grad gown and diploma holder. He feels grown up already, and older, and so young.

“Can’t believe it’s just you and me already,” Niall says at one thirty. So early, it’s ridiculous. 

Harry flips on the overhead lights and surveys the damage to their little flat. “We could go to bed and clean this up in the morning,” he muses. 

Niall imagines waking up to this mess and clucks his tongue. Harry’s already begun smiling. He goes over to the speaker where his old iPod is playing a remix of “Uptown Funk” and changes it to their oldies playlist. “Hooked on a Feeling” starts playing while Niall shakes out garbage bags. Harry sings along and shimmies his hips and tosses his head, and Niall laughs. Wants to remember it all. 

“Oh,” Harry says, his head popping up. Niall looks over, sure that he must’ve found a tenner or a used condom. “I forgot,” he says, an apologetic note in his voice. “I was going to bake you cookies.” He starts pulling at his bottom lip. 

If they finish cleaning up quick, Niall can be asleep by two thirty, up and out of the house by no later than ten to pack his shit. Or. They could stay up all night baking cookies and Niall will make Harry help him pack tomorrow because his flight leaves sooner than Harry’s parents will come to pick him up, and they can mainline coffee all day. 

Niall shrugs. “Ain’t too late, is it?” he asks. 

Dishes from the party soak in the sink and the trash is all picked up, even if they haven’t moved the furniture back into the middle of the room. Niall kicks his heels against the kitchen cupboards and watches Harry measure scoops of sugar into the cookie mix. Harry slides the tray into the oven just as The Four Tops start singing about “sugar pie, honey bunch,” and he laughs and starts singing along. Harry sets his hands on the hips of an imaginary dance partner and steps into a waltz. 

“Such an odd one,” Niall says, fishing his phone out of his pocket to take a pic. 

“Get in here with me,” Harry responds, so Niall slides off the counter and steps into the circle of Harry’s arm. Harry had one dance lesson before his mother’s remarriage and Niall learned a bit of Irish dancing growing up in Ireland, so neither of them are any good. In fact, Niall’s not even sure they’re really waltzing. It’s not bad, though, with Harry’s arm looping round his neck, his other hand set on Niall’s hip. Niall shuffles further into his embrace. Harry smells like barbecue smoke and beer and that flowery perfume he nicked off Gemma, and his soft curls coil familiarly around Niall’s fingers. 

“I wish I was graduating too,” Harry says, so close now he only has to whisper.  

“No, you don’t,” Niall laughs softly. 

The hand on Niall’s hip shifts under the hem of his shirt. Harry slips his fingers under the waistband of Niall’s jeans, stroking his skin. Niall can hear the shift in his own breathing, and it’d be a little embarrassing, how fast his cheeks color, except this is Harry. Harry, who licks his lips and bends his head in and kisses Niall goodbye. 

His mouth is soft and warm, and he rubs little circles into Niall’s back under his t-shirt, his tongue licking the taste out of Niall’s mouth till there’s only Harry.

***

The oven dings, and Harry pulls away, smiling that mega watt smile. Niall thinks he could cry. “That’ll be for you,” Harry says. 

Harry brings Niall a bouquet of succulents in a pot of soil to graduation. “Flowers are lovely but you put them in a vase and then a week or so later, they’re dead. So, yeah,” he says, and thrusts the pot into Niall’s arms. “I’m so proud of you,” he admits, and hides his face in Niall’s neck. Niall presses his smile to Harry’s forehead. 

Niall takes half the shit from their flat back to the thrift store for the next uni student. Harry insists he keeps the ugly throw blanket they kept on the back of the couch, and Niall couldn’t bear to part with their mismatched set of shot glasses if his life depended on it. The rest he lets go. 

The day Niall flies back to Ireland, Harry keeps Niall company waiting for his car on the couch he’s keeping for next year. They’ve made plans for Harry to visit later in the summer, and Niall wouldn’t miss Harry’s graduation next spring for anything. It’s just. It’s goodbye, for a while. 

They make aimless conversation about Niall’s family’s visit and whether Derby or Manchester will stand a chance next season. Harry interrupts himself halfway through a comment on the Head and the Heart concert he wants to catch this summer by saying, “Also, not to be weird, but I think we’re soulmates.” 

“You’re always weird,” Niall says, and drags Harry in by his collar. He drops his head onto Niall’s shoulder but his hands don’t snake into the rips on Niall’s jeans. He’s letting go, too. For a little while. Downstairs, a car horn blares, and Niall’s phone starts ringing. “That’ll be for you,” Harry says. He walks Niall down to watch him load his things into the cab in the doorway to their building. Niall stuffs his bags into the trunk and waves at Harry, who waves back, a bright smile fixed to his face. 

It’s not enough, Niall decides. He gestures to the driver – one second – and trots back up the stairs. “I think we are, too,” he admits to Harry, and presses a parting kiss to the corner of his smiling mouth. 

He buckles himself into the cab and immediately turns to watch Harry. Harry’s stepped out of the doorway and gone down the few steps to the street in his bare feet, still waving.

Niall waves back at him till the cab turns the corner and trundles him away. For a while, Niall reminds himself, and holds onto it like a promise.


	14. burning down the clock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> quick canon compliant character study; harry's an actor, now.

The first thing Harry thinks when he sees himself in full costume is that he looks like his granddad. He rolls his shoulders and tries to fix his posture to military standards. He watched about fifty episode of _Inside the Actor’s Studio_ to prepare for his role, and he remembers someone, somewhere, saying that they put on a character the way they put on a coat. The character doesn’t change what’s underneath, it just reveals less. Mystery accounts for so many different interpretations. 

Harry thinks he knows that as well as anyone. 

Harry tried out for X-Factor at 16, which is both part of his personal history and something published in at least a hundred different magazines and three authorized autobiographies. Harry knows that most people think that he can’t really be intimidated, or that he’s used to putting himself out there and trying new things. Most people must’ve forgotten that he had the same job for five years and that success only seemed guaranteed because he made it. 

Showing up to the first table read feels intimidatingly like that X-Factor audition, is all. Harry’s been around the world a dozen times and won more awards than he actually remembers but he’s still scared, is the thing. 

The feeling is so nice that Harry lingers outside the double doors leading into a quiet room teeming with soft voices, just to bask in it. His PA clears his throat, so Harry squares his shoulders like a gladiator stepping into the coliseum. It feels a little like building a new spaceship. 

He doesn’t think he does a perfect job. His accent still slips sometimes and he knows that his voice is tight with nerves and tension, and he’s too wooden in his chair, too conscious of the soft _clink_ of his rings against each other to gesture like he normally would. 

Still. Hearing the script come to life like is like sharing a dream with a room full of other people. It’s only with a soft pang that Harry thinks of the boys from the band. He sets the feeling aside, smiles, and makes to introduce himself to everyone in the room. It’s only polite. 

The first day of filming happens in a place that Harry never went on tour. For a while there, in the middle-end of it, he’d started to feel like he’d been everywhere in the world one too many times. There was no stone left unturned and he was - trapped isn’t the right word, but limited, maybe. Like that line in _The Great Gatsby_ about explorers reaching the east coast of America and discovering the last land commensurate to their capacity for wonder, like. But Tom Hardy talks about how there’s Mt. Everest and then there’s personal, invisible, secret Mount Everests, and Harry thinks that maybe there’s a whole world he’s only just scratched the surface of. 

He totes his character around with him like an imaginary friend. Even when he’s _not_ him, he keeps half-turning as if to ask someone at his side, “What do you think?” It’s probably a form of insanity so Harry’s not really talked about it, but he likes the companionship. It’s a bit like hefting Lux in his arms or her clinging to his ankles. Animals at the zoo and the enormous rattling of a train passing overhead and the blinding flash of dozens of paps all become new. Instead of mundane, they become full of potential again, exciting. Like Harry could really be someone who gets to ride the rails around New York if he moves there someday, or be the sort of person who backpacks around a distant country and sleeps on the beach. 

Harry’s just not that person, really. 

But maybe his character is. And maybe he can come upon those things from behind, like rediscovering wonder not by means of forgetting but by remembering. It’d be like going on a One Direction world tour again but to see the sights, instead. A curious little ache stings Harry’s heart, but he files away the idea for further contemplation. At the very least, it might make a nice song. 

A curious thing happens when Chris Nolan’s near-impenetrable stage curtains close around the set. The work is hard and grueling and Harry’s sweat out at least his own body weight since that first day filming on the beaches where he laid down on his back in the cool damp sand and thought that it was almost as good as camping. And it’s like magic. 

Harry’s always thought there’s something of _Peter Pan_ to being in the band. Well, not so much Peter, but Tinkerbell. Normal people don’t need an audience of tens of thousands of people thundering their approval to feel good. “Clap your hands if you believe!” they might as well have shouted, between every chorus of _Best Song Ever._ Anyway. They didn’t have to say it. It was true, anyway. 

But filming’s not quite like that. It’s more like summer camp, really; sound techs and filmhands and assistants and actors all become as familiar as the kids Harry knew back in White Eskimo days. The world doesn’t need to feel bigger. It’s enough that he feels free in the part of it that’s his. 

‘Course, paps break through the illusion sometimes. And fans. The worst part is those damn forward-facing cameras, the ones where Harry’s forced to confront his own grimace in the picture. He knows he should smile. Niall still smiles, and Louis. But it doesn’t feel like he has to, and he doesn’t want to, so he doesn’t. 

They’ve taken enough, Harry thinks, sometimes, when he’s up in the middle of the night pounding away at the treadmill. They’ve given so much back, he can admit in the shower after, water pouring down over his shoulders. But if he’s good - if he’s really, proper good - then he doesn’t have to be cute, or charming. He can just be himself, and he’ll still sell. Himself - whoever that is.

Harry’s stint draws to a close faster than he expected it to. When Chris offers him more lines, Harry grabs at them wildly. He’s not ready to leave yet. Not the gents, who let Harry in first, or the lads, who make him feel…well, not quite normal, but not like a different species. The thing is, you start to feel the way people treat you, even if you know it’s not true. 

Outside the constructed microcosm of Dunkirk there’s an eighty million dollar record deal, and the rest of the world goes on. Louis and Briana row over Twitter and Liam goes quiet the way he does only if he’s really, properly happy, and Niall finally lets himself love something more than the band. 

And Harry’s just taking a little break, for a while. When he comes back he thinks the character he’d most like to try on is himself. 


	15. summer's almost gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> canon compliant, set in the fall of 2016.

Niall’s been living in LA for six months before he runs into Harry at a party. The Azoffs have their fingers in most of LA’s recording scene, so Niall probably should’ve guessed that Harry would turn up to the Haim girls’ album release party. They were all blowing up Days Are Gone while they were working on Four, replaying the instrumental bits as much as they did the harmonies, talking about all those eighties sounds made new. Niall still regrets that he and the boys never sang “What a Feeling” live. 

He hasn’t seen Harry since they got into separate cars after the X-Factor. Harry gave him a wave and a quick grin, and the next day they were flying to opposite sides of the world. Niall doesn’t ever feel like the last five years never happened, but sometimes he’s afraid they mattered less than he thought they did. That’s gone almost a year, now, and Niall still doesn’t know how he feels about it. 

His mates who went to uni moved away from their roommates after graduation and haven’t been able to afford to meet up on their starter jobs since, which is basically the same thing, right? And it’s not like he hasn’t been able to keep up with every move Harry Styles, young Mick Jagger turned movie star, makes. 

Niall can hear Harry’s slow, desultory, “Erm, yeah, I think the best place to find, like, my look is, well, my stylist sends me lookbooks, and I like…the ones I like, you know, we go back and forth, and it’s pretty simple, really,” from the living room. He sounds like he’s just stepped through the door, but that’s Harry, isn’t it. He’s a hot ticket these days. 

Niall is, too, in his way, but he likes being able to make it through a door without someone stopping him to try and get a piece: a picture, or a quote, or even a good look. Enough to post something on Twitter saying he looks great, he looks awful, he looks tired, he looks well-rested. Niall used to reckon that one of those had to be right, but these days, he wonders if it can’t all be true at once. Harry sells himself like a blank slate, but maybe instead of nothing he reveals too much.

He takes his time mashing mint leaves, sugar, and lime juice for mojitos. The girls had the party catered but Este wasted no time inviting Niall in and showing him to their private liquor stock, so he’s helping himself to a bottle of rum. Niall spent most of his summer days drinking beer and watching other bands kill it onstage and drinking beer and watching professional athletes kill it on the court, and most of his summer nights having the lads round for drinks he learned how to mix up while his burgers sizzled on the grill outside. 

Niall likes the process of it, how settled everything is. His hands know what to do even while his mind starts pulling up everything he knows about Harry like it’s a computer with a loose command prompt trigger. Harry’s smooth skin and how nice he smelled even after he went on that “all natural” kick and stopped wearing deodorant and cologne, and how it felt every single time Harry aimed that slow-dawning smile at him. Like a panel of judges voting “yes,” every single time. 

He goes heavy on the rum, light on the sparkling water, because he prefers beer anyway and it’d be such a waste of this Bacardi if he wet it too much. He pours the drink mix over the leaves and sugar syrup and gives it a stir, giving himself time to drop a couple of extra mint leaves over the top. Just to make it look pretty. Then he carries the two glasses out to the living room. 

The first thing Harry does when he sees Niall is say, “Oh, there you are,” like he’d been expecting him. 

Maybe Harry had. If Niall wasn’t surprised for him to pop up in the middle of his life, maybe Harry isn’t, either. It’s a nice thought. 

Niall hands him the drink and Harry promptly sticks his big ‘ol nose and mouth into the glass to get a good sniff. It has Niall rolling his eyes less than a minute into seeing Harry again. It doesn’t feel like a lot of time has passed. It doesn’t feel like time has passed at all, really. 

Which isn’t quite what Niall had in mind when he promised himself to give them time to grow up, maybe grow apart. Grow out of love with Harry. 

The way Niall sees it, being in love with Harry is just a fact of his life, same as his gammy knee and that cleaning and organizing shit makes him feel calmer. 

“Refreshing,” Harry says, and finally takes a drink. He tips his head back and Niall looks at the long, smooth line of his throat, soft skin spilling down under the collar of his nearly sheer button-up shirt. Niall makes himself look away. 

“What the fuck do you mean, you haven’t heard _Thick as Thieves_ yet?” Niall asks Harry. His face feels very hot, and he’s not sure if it’s the alcohol or the impact of Harry’s soft green eyes on his face or the fact that Harry, Mr. “Won’t Stop Till We Surrender,” hasn’t heard Temper Trap’s latest album. How very them it is to sneak away to an empty bedroom at an album release party to talk about all the music they’ve been listening to. 

Harry shrugs slowly, a slow smile rearranging his face into something hard to look at straight-on. In all the business of finding a new business after One Direction, Niall probably should’ve forgotten how slowly Harry does everything, and how spontaneously, as when he reaches out to thumb at the scar peeking out of the hole in Niall’s jeans. Harry’s brain is a map with half the puzzle pieces missing, and Niall falls back into being comfortable with him like they’d never been apart. 

Harry’s hair is still short on the sides, and only longish on the top, and he’s grown out of his Stevie Nicks phase and back into his Young Mick phase with a pair of ripped skinnies and a leather jacket over some designer t-shirt with red sparkles on it like rubies or drops of blood, and his accent is even more faded than the last time Niall heard it. And still Niall says, “Goddamn idiot,” and smiles, and means the opposite. 

“I’ll have you know I don’t regret that tattoo at all,” Harry says. “But I like that one lyric. From the last song, what was it? ‘I used to know / where did it go?’”

Niall takes a curious second look at Harry. He looks tired, but that’s not new. “You been writing?” Niall asks, trying to make it casual. 

Harry shrugs, all casual-like, too. “Yeah.” Which is all the confirmation he needs that Harry’s going through something. 

Suddenly the thought occurs to Niall that he could pull away, lean back and smile and say, “Well, maybe we can catch them on tour,” and make plans that’ll never happen, and leave it till their next unlikely meeting. Niall’s been in love with Harry for so long that he can’t remember not loving him. See, before they ever knew each other he and Liam went to the same footie game and Louis and Harry went to the same concert and Zayn and Lou went out for the same job, and time stretches in two directions, and Niall can’t brook the existence of a universe where he and Harry haven’t bumped into each other. They’d have had their turn. 

It’s just that he’s never been the person to do that. He’s all in or all out, and he’s always going to be all in for Harry. “Yeah?” Niall checks, casual as he can. He takes another sip of the bottle of whiskey they started on after the mojitos ran out. 

Niall wasn’t surprised when Harry swanned back into his life, and he’s not surprised when he finds himself in bed with Harry, either. The wooden backboard presses uncomfortably into his back and his arse is going numb on the mattress, and Harry’s head is in his lap, his face blotchy and tear-wet. Niall drags his fingers through Harry’s hair and thinks about the last time this happened, and how nothing really changes, it just happens somewhere else.  

Harry cries himself dry, and then it’s just him and Niall looking at each other. The moment feels more vulnerable than sex, the way Harry’s looking at him. Here’s mysterious, unknowable Harry, real and young and unbearably bare in Niall’s lap, and Niall wants so badly not to be another person that tries to take advantage of him. So he just keeps combing his fingers through Harry’s hair, and eventually Harry’s eyes slip shut, and Niall is proud of himself. 

“Well,” he says, when Harry’s drifting off with his head a heavy bowling ball in Niall’s lap, his body sprawled out sideways across the bed so his feet are hanging off the mattress, “think of Adele. At least you know you’ll get a good album out of it.” 

Harry chokes sputtering on a laugh, and Niall flinches so hard when Harry rolls his face into Niall’s crotch that he rolls too far the other way and lays on his bum knee. If they leave Haim’s guest room limping and red-eyed, nobody thinks anything of it. Hopefully.

***

The next day, Niall’s phone rings with an unknown number. He fumbles it off the bedside table and answers with a, “What,” that hopefully doesn’t sound as miserably fucking tired as he feels. He came home from the party buzzing on new tunes, and the strange bittersweet disappointment of waving Harry off to his car at the end of the night like it was 2015 again, ‘cept he’s not so worried about it this time round. 

Niall sent himself straight from the car to his tidy back garden, where he’s trying to grow an organic herb garden. The stars looked like cell phone lights, and he picked away at the tune in his head till he got it down the way he wanted on the guitar. The blisters on his fingers ache, and his head feels cotton-stuffed and slow, and he could light up with it. 

“Seeing as we’re neighbors now,” Harry drawls, “figured you could take me golfing sometime.” 

“Fuck off,” Niall says, and hangs up. He lies there in his soft cool bed and waits one second, two seconds, three. They’d have had their chance, Niall thinks. The last six years never really feel like a dream. They changed everything. It’s up to him to make the most of it. His phone rings again. “Okay,” he answers, like he’s had to be convinced. 


	16. if i could change your mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an au where niall and harry are members of rival bands who don't like each other at all (supposedly).

Harry comes down from his high to someone banging on the toilet door. He can feel the vibrations against his back, and he comes to slowly, gently, like he’s on his and the band’s rumbling tour bus trundling down a barren highway in middle America, no end in sight. “Mm,” Harry says, a wordless sound of approval, and strokes his fingers through Niall’s short, bright hair.

Niall unsticks his sweaty forehead from Harry’s bare thigh, his jeans pooled around his ankles. Harry wonders, idly, why he only ever gets to wear trousers to formal events. Other people get cocktail dresses and gowns and other words Harry can’t think of right now. Jeans are just hot.

“Whazzat?” Niall asks blearily. Harry watches him blink slowly, his eyelashes thick, dark gold like something out of a Renaissance painting. He looks soft in a way that hardly anyone looks soft in this business, in a way that Harry would never have expected from him. Harry swipes at the freckles spread over the top of Niall’s cheek like he can rub them in or wipe them away. Doesn’t quite seem fair that they’re real, is all.

Niall gives himself a shake and sits up, away from Harry, his face pinched. Where Harry wants nothing more than a nap after a shag, Niall always rolls away like he’s knocked back two shots of bullet coffee. “Someone’s knocking on the door,” Niall says, distantly. He gets to his feet slowly, his weight skewed in a weird way, and Harry wonders if he accidentally kneed him or something.

They both freeze at the same time. Harry’s tired, sex-sated heart starts pounding again. “Hell,” he says, just in time for Niall to fling his shirt at his face.

“Niall Horan Caught Givin’ Harry Styles a Blowie in the Toilet at the AMA’s,” Niall’s saying, in that announcer voice that’s been annoying the shit out of Harry since he overheard it backstage at the TCA’s four or five years ago. He can pick Niall’s goaty laugh out of a crowd and his stupid announcer voice out of a screaming stadium. Harry rolls his eyes and tries to ignore the way his chest feels tight. Asthma, he tells himself. “What a fucking headline. Christ.”

“Relax,” Harry says. “Nobody’s going to find out.”

Niall looks at Harry, who’s tangled up in the strings that lace up the front of his shirt. “What?” Harry asks, looking down at himself. “Did you get come on it?”

“Might as well have,” says Niall, whose voice veers away from stressed to flat-out panic. “You look fucked out, I look,” he snaps a glance at himself in the mirror at the Microsoft Theatre. Harry always thinks it’s strange that the bogs in places like these are always a right mess when the rest of the venue is posh and well-maintained. Harry looks at the mirror, too. Him in his skintight jeans, his hair curling over his shoulders like something out of a Yeats poem, his cross necklace tangled in his hair, and Niall effortlessly cool in his jean jacket and cuffed jeans. Harry’s asthmatic lungs give another bizarre squeeze. A swell of jealousy fills his stupid heart.

“I look like Rudolph,” Niall says, rubbing at his flushed cheeks like he can get the circulation going. Harry reaches down and yanks his jeans up and hops till they go over his hips. He clears his throat and addresses the stranger at the door. “Sorry, mate, must’ve locked it behind me out of habit! Give us jus’ a sec!”

Then he gives Harry a very clear look. It’s strange, because his eyes are so light, but Harry never gets the feeling that he can see the bottom. More like he looks at Niall and he might as well be looking at the sky, so big and wide and blue that people have been filling it with stories and legends forever. Harry’s mouth goes dry.

“We’ve got to stop hooking up like this,” Niall says, even as he does up the confusing laces at the front of Harry’s shirt for him. “We’ll get caught, and people will make it into more than it is.”

“Which is nothing,” Harry says. His voice comes out surprisingly level. Harry doesn’t know why it’s surprising. Not like he loves Niall, not that he even really likes him; he’s just a bloke Harry grew up with in parallel, over tours and awards shows, his appearance only important because Harry’s brain has conditioned him to associate Niall with landmarks in his life. It’s not his fault he’s trained to start salivating when he sees Niall.

Niall looks up at him. Harry has the advantage of an inch, maybe two, but personally he thinks he’ll always be grateful for the angle it gives him. Alexa told Harry once that looking at him was like looking into a lighthouse, but looking at Niall is more like – anyway. Doesn’t matter.

“Right,” says Niall.

“Okay,” says Harry. “See you out there, then. I hope you lose, by the way.”

“You too,” Niall says, his voice thick with amusement. Then, “Wait a sec.” He reaches for Harry’s face and Harry thinks randomly, spasmodically, that he’s getting a goodbye kiss. Instead, Niall untangles the cross on Harry’s necklace from his curls. “Go on,” Niall says. “I’ll wait a few minutes. You know, cover.”

Harry nods, and then he unlocks the bathroom deadbolt, and none of the three blokes queued up outside so much as pause when they push past him. Harry can’t tell if he’d rather have fans to entertain or if he’s just happy to have gotten a clean getaway. He slinks back to his seat.


	17. some days are better than others

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an au where theo loses his parents and niall has to step in and take care of him. harry is theo's teacher.

“That was a mistake,” Harry says. He yanks his hands away from Niall like Niall’s too hot to touch, his face seven hundred shades of contrite.

“Because,” Niall sputters, his brain whirling for an explanation. Not that Harry owes him one, but – he’d thought he and Harry were on the same page, is all. Then he remembers himself. There’s an awful lot of reasons Harry shouldn’t kiss him. He dresses like he’s headed to a Jimmy Buffett tribute show after this, and he’s already told Niall about how he has a plan to get out of this one-horse town, and he’s Niall’s kid’s teacher, to boot.

“Jesus,” says Niall. There’s so many reasons for Harry not to kiss Niall he can’t even list them all. Somehow, that doesn’t stop him from lunging into Harry’s next kiss. Harry fists his hands in Niall’s shirt so tight Niall knows he’ll have wrinkles the shape of Harry’s hands. His shirt comes untucked, and Harry releases his death grip to slide his palms up over Niall’s stomach, a hum reverberating deep in his chest like a cat’s purr.

“Definitely,” Niall says, “definitely a mistake,” and tilts his head to let Harry lick over his Adam’s apple, the sensitive underside of his jaw.

Harry just hums. “Knew you were an ass man,” he says, which doesn’t make sense till Niall realizes he’s settled his palms almost possessively over Harry’s flat arse. He thinks about making a joke about his ex who had negative ass, and how Harry makes him want to unfurl himself like a flower, which his ex _definitely_ never did, but he’s got it somewhere in his head that he shouldn’t say that stuff right now. Right away, or maybe ever. He’s got the feeling that it’d hurt worse than it’s worth to open his big mouth when he has Harry in the circle of his arms just till he gets his senses back.

This close to him, Niall can smell Harry’s aftershave, something spicy and warm, and the faded scent of burnt vanilla candles on his skin, and the fruit bowl he’d been having for lunch before Niall dropped by his classroom before heading home for the day. Niall’s not all that great at scaling his life, is all. One day he’s twenty-two and freshly graduated from university with a plan to save for three years and then take a gap year that’ll be the adventure of a lifetime.

And then suddenly his brother and sister-in-law are gone, and he’s the legal guardian of a precocious three-year-old who pronounces his name like “Neil.” Now Niall’s increasingly sure that he’ll die if anything ever happens to Theo.

So no, he shouldn’t kiss Harry. Shouldn’t let Harry kiss him. He’s young, proper young, and Niall’s the very definition of staying. He knows that about himself, at least.

“Invite me over,” says Harry. “Invite me to dinner.”

_What, like you’re a vampire?_ Niall wants to say. In another life, he would’ve. _Just invite yourself, mate._ He can even picture the way Harry’s eyes would go big and soft and tender and full. Some long-forgotten parts of Niall want to reach out, be vulnerable, let him in.

Niall kisses Harry back softly, less like the desperate kiss he’d give at a party where he was afraid he might never see that person again, more like the kind of kiss he’d give someone who reminded him of the flowers at Greg’s and Denise’s wedding, fresh and clean and soap-smelling, warm. Like laundry drying on clotheslines strung up across the back garden.

“Can’t do,” Niall says, coming to rest with his forehead pressed to Harry’s.

“Sure you can,” says Harry. His hands, long-fingered and ringed, inch down the back of Niall’s pants. “I went to dinner with Veronica’s parents just the other night. And Brodie’s mum even had me round for game night with their friends. There was even _wine_.”

Niall considers this. Or, well, he tries to. He wants so bad for Harry to come home with him, for the sight of him in his dead brother’s house to become familiar and offset a little of the lingering grief, so badly that he can’t think straight. Niall’s not great at scaling his life. “Was planning to watch the Derby match this weekend,” he hears himself say, as if from far off. His chest swells, heart in his throat.

“I’m inviting myself,” Harry says.

***

“You have to come over to my house, I don’t care if you’ve got Cthulhu in your basement,” Niall whispers into his phone, putting as much rage and vinegar into it as he can. He hates making a fuss anywhere, and especially in public, but Louis’s been nattering on about a leak in his plumbing for ten godawful minutes.

“Oy, don’t get testy with me,” says Louis. “I’m not the one who told me to buy a house, now, am I?”

Niall actually draws up short. Sometimes he forgets, is all. Well, Louis forgets he and Zayn are over, and Niall forgets that Louis forgets. Their lives were so inextricably tangled for such a long time that parsing them out really ought to take time, but to Niall it feels so clear. What he got out of his and Zayn’s never-ending disaster of a relationship was his friendship with Louis, and so the rest is moot. That’s how he’d like to think of it, anyway.

Niall clears his throat. “No, and neither am I,” he says. He tries a little too hard to put impatience into his voice, and it just comes out plaintive. “Please, Louis. I really…” He clears his throat. “I could use a friend.”

Louis makes a wounded sound like Niall’s just elbowed him in the gut, or blown up his character in Halo. “I hate it when you go for the heart, you know, Nialler. Gives me no choice.”

Niall lets go of his breath on a shaky laugh. “‘S why I never do it, isn’t it? Anyway, bring the little lad. We’ll see you here.”

“Be good, Nialler,” Louis says, and rings off. The thing is, Niall’s never quite sure where Louis draws the line between good and bad. Niall’s not stupid enough, or selfish enough, not to have seen past the whirling storm walls of his own grief that Louis was properly worried about him. And maybe – Niall dares to hope – maybe Louis’s definition of good can include Harry. In some way, really. In any way.

Niall slips his phone into his pocket and trots up the stairs to grief counseling, his messenger back knocking against the backs of his legs, and doesn’t even have to remind himself to breathe through it.

***

Niall’s in the kitchen prodding his stir fry around the sizzling skillet when the door bell goes. “I’ll get it!” Louis crows. Niall would really very much rather Theo get the door, to be honest. He gives the skillet a couple of good swishes to make sure nothing’s burning to the bottom of the pan and pretends that he’s not listening hard. He can hear Louis introduce himself, Harry’s slow, calm voice, the kids on the floor in the living room prattling on about everything and nothing to each other.

It’s with an enormous effort of will that Niall keeps his back to the door. His hands stay busy spreading tortillas on an oven tray to warm and taking the gelato out of the freezer to soften. He’s taking three robin’s egg blue dinner plates out of the faded white cupboard when Louis’s voice reaches him again, much closer now. “Here he is,” says Lou, pride in his voice like he’s looking at another one of his kids. “Neil, your guest is here.”

“Great, thanks, Lewis,” Niall rolls his eyes. His brain stutters a bit catching sight of Harry. He’s toned down his look tonight so that he’s wearing an oversized jumper with the sleeves rolled up to his bony wrists, and his hair is drawn back into a neat bun. He looks cozy, and at home, especially with Theo slung over his shoulder like a sack of flour. “Hi,” Niall says, clearing his throat. He nods at Theo. “Did the babe do something wrong already?”

“I’m a prisoner!” Theo laughs, peeking out through the gap between Harry’s ribs and arm. All the blood has rushed to his head, so he’s flushed pink up to his dark roots, and Niall isn’t afraid for him at all.

Niall laughs. He brings down a salad plate for Louis’s tiny one to munch much smaller serving sizes off, and then he says, “Prisoners have to eat all their vegetables, you know.”

Theo screams, “No!” and Harry lets him down to run off with a smile. “Alright?” he asks Niall, while Niall thinks about Harry’s jumper on the floor in his bedroom.

Niall hitches a smile onto his face that feels more natural the more he eases into this moment. “Always,” he says.

***

Disney Junior keeps playing on the television even though both the children are long asleep. Even Louis is crashed out on the armchair in the corner, his brownish fringe falling across his face. He looks like the punky version of himself Niall first met in uni, the version that Zayn introduced him to, and it doesn’t give Niall any more feeling than nostalgia. Those were good years. They weren’t necessarily the best years, not when there’s so much left to go.

“You have a lovely home,” Harry says, polite as can be. His voice is soft and a little hoarse; they’d all yelled at the match till Freddie decided he didn’t like it and started crying. Harry sat down with him in his lap. The baby’s asleep against his chest now, looking very small and fragile and less intimidating than Niall first remembers.

Niall says something he doesn’t mean to. “It was my brother’s house, before…” He trails off. Niall clears his throat. “Thank you.”

“You miss him?” Harry asks. He rolls his head across the back of the couch to study Niall’s expression, every line of his lanky body perfectly relaxed. Niall knows he needs to scoop Theo up off his lap and put him to bed, wake Louis up and send him home.

He can’t quite make himself break away from this moment, either, though. Feels more like a few seconds snatched out of time, like the late night conversations he had with his mates when they were all so young and felt their lives might go anywhere. It’s not a sad thing that a life doesn’t, really; all that potential doesn’t mean shit if you don’t choose one way to go or another. Niall gives himself a few seconds of sadness for all the versions of himself that didn’t get their chance, and then he settles into this moment.

“Nah,” Niall answers. “He was an ass to me, so no, not really. Just, for Theo’s sake, you know? I dunno. And me dad’s.”

“And yours,” Harry says, smiling unevenly. Niall wonders how someone so well-loved can look so sad.

Niall laughs, soft and quiet, like a whisper. “Yeah,” he says.

Harry shifts in his seat like he’s making to leave, and Niall won’t stop him, but that doesn’t mean he’s not hoping Harry will choose to stay. “You’ve got such a good thing going,” Harry says. “With Theo, and your mates, your whole life, I. I’m sorry if I, like. I don’t want to put it at risk just for my sake. Sorry if it seemed that way.” He sends Niall an apologetic smile like he’s not the first thing Niall’s seen in years that makes him want to get back in touch with a version of himself that was allowed to want anything. Everything. “I just wanted a piece of it.”

“Come ‘ere,” Niall says, because there’s only so far Niall can lean with Theo’s head in his lap, his little legs draped over the arm of the sofa. Luckily, Harry obliges. Niall kisses him like Harry’s already his, the way he thinks he must already be Harry’s; like there’s nothing left but missing each other when they’re apart.

Harry could lose his job, and he’s probably finding his way out of this little town, anyway. Niall’s not in any position to be complicating Theo’s life, or hanging his heart on something he’s not sure about, but the thing is – the thing is, that can only be life.

“Bit scary, isn’t it?” Harry asks, like he can read Niall’s mind. He glances down at the kids. “That they might wake up, I mean.”

Niall nods. Strokes Theo’s soft hair. Decides it’ll be fine, in the end. “Was thinking of taking him to the park tomorrow, after school, if –”

“I’ll come,” Harry says quickly. “I’m coming.”

Niall smiles.


	18. our favorite parts are what we'll keep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> canon compliant; harry propositions niall toward the end of 2015.

Harry shows up in Niall’s doorway with a mouthful of banana and the fine baby hairs around his face wisping out of his bun. “Niall,” says Harry through his mouthful of banana. 

Niall grimaces. “Could you fucking chew and swallow, mate?”  

Obediently, Harry swallows his mouthful of banana. “Niall,” he says again seriously. 

Niall stops flipping through the cable menu for a game of golf or footie or tennis. The duvet is soft and fluffy, and he has no plans of getting out of bed unless the hotel is literally on fire. 

“Did you ever think about me and you?” Harry asks, like that’s a perfectly reasonable thing to say on the last leg of One Direction’s last tour before indefinite hiatus. Niall pops a cuticle into his mouth and starts chewing before he can stop himself. 

“Why?” Niall asks. 

“Well,” Harry says. He pads across Niall’s room in his hotel slippers and a pair of basketball shorts Niall feels pretty certain belonged to Liam at one point. His broad back is sloped familiarly into his terrible posture. He looks a little like a stuffed animal sometimes, Harry, when Niall is very tired and most glad to be in a band. The plastic trash bag liner crinkles when Harry drops his banana peel into the bin. “You’re well fit, Nialler,” Harry says, as if that explains everything.   
Maybe it does. Niall’s fit, Harry likes a fit shag, Harry’d like a shag with Niall. Simple. Easy. 

Niall puts the remote down, finally, because there’s nothing on but men’s beach volleyball, and he’s not that desperate. “You want to have a go with me?”  

Harry’s eyes rake over Niall from the top of his ruffled hair to his knobby ankles crossed at the foot of the bed. He’d come up to his room after the show expecting a couple of hours of telly, maybe arsing around on Twitter, then sleep. He hadn’t expected Harry to wander in and proposition him except in the way that he’s never surprised anymore when Harry’s broad palm slides over his ass. You really can get used to anything, Niall’s discovered. “If you’re not busy.” 

Because he’s not an idiot, Niall’s had a rule about not shagging his bandmates for the last few years. You just don’t do it, because if you sleep with them once, then it’s easy to let it happen again, and then someone has feelings and Niall’s stuck in a band with someone who broke his heart or whose heart he broke. And then no matter how it transpires the band going their separate ways will have been his fault, somehow, because he let himself be selfish. 

But the band is going on break whatever Niall does. And he’s not blind. Of course he’s thought about it. Maybe especially with Harry, who’s made it a point to tell Niall how much he likes him. 

Niall shrugs. “Yeah, alright,” he says, so he turns the TV off and sets the remote aside on the bedside table. Harry lets his hair down and shakes it out, his eyes turning dark and hungry, and then he says, “Wait, let’s have some music on.” 

“Anything but Bon Iver,” Niall says. So Harry piles onto the bed beside him and they go through the bank of music on his phone first by album, then by artist, because Niall swears it’s neater that way. “How come you have all of Miley Cyrus’s albums, Harry?” Niall asks, same as he always does. 

“Because I can’t be tamed,” says Harry. “And I adore you.” 

“Let’s put on James Bay instead,” Niall suggests, so Harry smiles and queues up Chaos and the Calm. “And this way if you start crying during,” Niall adds, while Harry shimmies down the bed and positions himself between Niall’s chicken legs, his hands curling around Niall’s delicate ankles, “we can say it was ‘cos of him.” 

“What do you mean, say?” Harry asks suspiciously. He runs his hands up the backs of Niall’s legs and cups his palms around Niall’s skinny calves. As seduction techniques go, it’s not really the ride of his life he’d always expected from Harry. More like Harry’s feeling him up to make a sculpture of later. Niall props himself up on his elbows to see if maybe Harry’s tattoos combine to have a hypnotic effect, or something. 

Niall watches Harry bend his head down to give Niall’s kneecap a filthy kiss. “Obviously we’re going to talk about it,” Niall says, his voice getting fainter the longer the tip of Harry’s wet pink tongue prods at all the soft spots. Harry keeps smoothing his palms up and down Niall’s legs as if to feel the soft hair and skin under his palms. “Probably together, with whoever asks. Liam, prob’ly.” Niall wrinkles his nose. “If you should be shagging anyone, it’d probably be him, honestly.” 

Harry snorts so hard he makes Niall jump and knee him in the tit. “Careful, Niall, I’m delicate as a peach,” Harry mumbles, the corners of his perverted lips turned up happily. He hooks his arm under Niall’s knee and sucks a bruise onto the inside of his thigh. Harry’s tongue rasps over Niall’s sensitive skin and it hurts in the very best way. It’s also a little weird, is all. Harry Styles is here in his bed putting the moves on him and all Niall can think about is this is Harry, who dropped by with his gob stuffed full of banana and regularly sends Niall pics of the weird shit he finds at estate sales. 

“It’s like you’ve trained me not to be affected,” Niall observes. “Too bad.” 

Harry sits back on his heels, looking peeved.  “Maybe if you would stop critiquing me,” he huffs. 

“I can’t help you’re a mess,” Niall says fondly. “C’mere. I wanna know what a snog from Harry Styles is like.” He lies quiescent on the soft sheets and waits for Harry to kiss him. Harry puts his hand on Niall’s hip and leans his face down. Normally Niall would’ve closed his eyes but there’s something fascinating about how many times Harry licks his lips before his mouth touches Niall’s, about the way his eyelashes tremble like butterfly antennae. 

Harry kisses slow and wet and deep, with plenty of tongue like he’s not used to anyone telling him he’s too much. It isn’t until it is, but suddenly Harry’s dropped down so much closer, his leg thrown across Niall’s hip, and then it’s like climbing into a steaming sauna, and the way that water-laden air is so much harder to breathe. Niall pushes on his chest just a little, just enough to get some air. 

“Is it good?” Harry asks, pulling back. He drags the pads of his fingers down Niall’s cheek. He licks his lips again. “Think I’ll have beard burn,” he comments, mostly to himself. 

“Use less tongue,” Niall tells him. “Here.” He nudges at Harry’s shoulder till Harry rolls onto his back, and then it’s Niall climbing over his hips, dropping his weight down onto the tops of Harry’s thighs. Then the album jumps to “Best Fake Smile,” which is objectively a great song but it breaks Niall’s heart for some reason, so he has to unsaddle himself from Harry to hit skip. 

Harry urges him back with his hands on his hips. “Kay,” says Harry. “Less tongue. Anything else?” he asks. He runs his soft, smooth palms up Niall’s back, then down again, his fingertips pressing into the indents at the base of Niall’s spine. 

Niall just shakes his head, then he kisses Harry again, and this time the spark takes. Harry’s hands spread wide over Niall’s skin and urge him down, closer. He keeps skimming his palms up and down Niall’s back, his fingers pushing more daringly under the waistband of Niall’s boxers every time, and then it’s like Harry remembers there’s a whole nother side to him, because he starts rubbing the pad of his thumb over Niall’s nip like he knows exactly what that does to him. 

“You’re practically humping my leg,” says Harry, delighted. “See? I knew we’d be good at this.” 

“Everything we do,” Niall agrees, just for the way Harry’s face crumples into a laugh. His hair looks dark spread over the hotel pillow and his pupils have almost swallowed his irises. Niall pushes himself forward a bit so that he’s sat over Harry’s dick. The first time he grinds his arse down, Harry’s eyes cloud over like he’s just taken a particularly deep hit off a blunt. It makes everything in Niall’s chest speed up like a winding clock. Niall touches the tattoo on his collarbone, then the sweaty hollow of his neck, can’t help himself, pushes his thumb against Harry’s speeding pulse point for the way his lips part in surprise. Niall’s hardly thinking when he pinches Harry’s throat, and Harry rewards him by twitching up against him off the mattress. 

Harry laughs. There’s no self-consciousness in it, no wariness, like Niall usually gets from his first-time shags. Which is pretty much the only type of shag he gets, to be honest. Not that he wants any different. Niall drops his head down to Harry’s chest and sucks on one of his puffy nipples till it feels bruised and sore, Harry squirming beneath him. At some point Niall tunes back in to hear him murmuring, “- so good, Nialler, love it, love this, love you.” 

“I love you, too,” Niall says, exasperated and overwhelmingly fond. “Now I’m trying to have a fuck here, if you’d kindly lay off it.” 

“Aw,” says Harry, while James croons about getting out while they can. “I love when you sweet talk me.” 

Niall considers his tone, the red slickness of his familiar mouth. Harry’s palm inches up Niall’s thigh, under the hem of his boxers, the unrepentant tease. “You want me to?” Niall asks. 

Harry shrugs. “If you want.” 

“Reckon you’re a decent singer,” Niall starts, feeling a little out of his element. He licks his lips and pushes on, “Christ, you’re great on stage. Backstage, too. Always liked having you nattering on in the dressing room. Used to – could see you change, sometimes.” Niall swallows. 

“Used to watch you,” Harry murmurs. Niall’s never seen him so still, not even that time he had a stomach bug and was trying so hard not to vom everywhere before that day’s round of interviews and promo was done. “Your back, your shoulders.” 

Niall raises his eyebrows. He knew Harry was seeing but he didn’t think he was actually taking note. “Fit,” Niall goes on, soft. “Always thought you were fit as hell even before you started hitting the gym every day.” Niall squeezes Harry’s soft love handles, less soft these days, and grinds his hips down. Harry tosses back his head so Niall can see the long, taut line of his throat, and he puts his mouth to it to suck and bite a bruise, leaves a soft kiss instead. “Something to hold onto,” he murmurs, and Harry says, “Fuck, Niall, fuck me.” 

It makes Niall pull back. “I –” He’s not sure what he means to say. Niall started this. Of course he’s going to see it through. It’s not even so much Harry sweating beneath him, his hips thrusting up against Niall, it’s how wet his boxers are with precome, how much he wants this. How much he wants Harry. Niall wonders how long he’s been sitting on that one. 

Harry sits up. His temples and hairline are damp with sweat and he presses his chest to Niall’s, draws him in for a sloppy kiss that has him licking all over Niall’s mouth like he’s trying to make him come from that alone. “Can I suck you off?” he murmurs against Niall’s mouth. His hands have already inched up Niall’s boxers and are jerking him off slowly, just this edge of too dry. 

“Sure, yes,” Niall says. He shimmies out of his boxers and Harry pulls him up by his hips till he’s kneeling on the mattress. Harry tugs his boxers down his legs and lets out an appreciative hum. “Not like you ain’t seen it,” Niall says. 

Harry snorts, chokes, and surfaces on a laugh. “Different, though,” Harry murmurs. He licks the head of Niall’s dick like it’s an ice cream cone. “Bitter, mate. You should eat more pineapple.” Harry’s already pressing the tip of his tongue to the slit before Niall can respond. He’s good with his mouth, Harry. 

Niall puts his hands on his shoulders because his legs have started shaking, and he can smell them both, pungent with sweat and sex and each other. Harry’s big hands get busy, too, one casually jerking Niall off with a copious amount of Niall’s precome and Harry’s spit, and the other cupping his balls, pushing further back, dragging a fingertip over his hole so that Niall all but jumps off the mattress. 

“Shit, do it again,” Niall says, when Harry makes no move. The first press of his fingertip has Niall coming in thick spurts onto Harry’s throat. Niall curves into him without meaning to at all. “I liked that,” Niall realizes, and adds it to the appropriate list in his head. 

“Knew you would,” Harry says, sounding smug. He clutches Niall to his sweaty chest like some kind of fruit-eating gorilla. Beneath sweat and sex he just smells like Harry, like banana and vanilla incense and Tom Ford, and Niall pats his back like they’ve agreed to terms of defeat on the golf course. Niall peels himself away from Harry and drags his fingers through the come drying on Harry’s throat. “You should really sample the flavor,” Harry says, like they’re standing around a haberdashery or one of them places with the food made out of cow’s tongue and bird’s eyeballs. “If not for the sake of your own health, then for your partner’s.” 

Niall rolls his eyes and then he tries it. The taste makes him cringe. “For Christ’s sakes,” he says. It really is bitter. Harry’s eyes are riveted, though, so Niall gives him a finger. His tongue swirls around greedily, and then he laughs, a little self-conscious. “More pineapple,” he says. “Or peach or any fruit, Niall, really. Thought you were getting fit.” 

“I’ll get fit on break,” Niall says. “Got plenty of time for it.” Jesus, yeah. He’s already started practicing filling the dull hours with travel plans and calling old friends to check in and see about maybe business connections, maybe, but really to ask about their kids and dog, and. Yeah. He can add looking up ingredients for Nutribullet smoothies to list of things he can do. Niall pushes his hair off his forehead and starts wiping at the mess on Harry’s chest with the corner of his sheet. “Are we done shagging, or should I put a new pair of pants on?” 

Harry says, “Obviously you should embrace sleeping naked, Niall. But also, if we’re only going to do this once…” Harry trails off, so Niall raises his eyebrows to encourage him. The worst that’ll happen is Harry will want to try getting off in one of those backbends that make his stomach look like a bridge and Niall will have to say no because he doesn’t want to be responsible for breaking his back. “Can we fuck?” 

“You mean – oh.” And Niall shouldn’t, but suddenly he can’t look at Harry and not see him sat on his bed at boot camp, very seriously asking Niall to show him how to work the washer. Sometimes the gap between the people they are and the stuff they’ve done seems so wide, Niall can’t believe they breached it. He’s so fiercely proud of Harry and the rest that he could sing with it. “Oh, alright,” he says. Harry kisses him with a smile on his face, the dimples in his cheeks very deep under the pad of Niall’s thumb. 

“Kay,” Harry says, pulling back. “Who’s doing who?” 

Niall shrugs. He’s already come once, and it was a long day, a hot show under the bright spotlights. Then Niall thinks about Harry asking instead of just saying, “Please can I fuck you,” and he knows. “Alright,” he says, pats Harry’s cheek fondly. 

Harry starts making himself comfortable in the middle of the mattress. He kicks all the blankets and sheets to the end of the bed, which is a good idea, objectively speaking. It also leaves Harry very naked and what’s more, bare, like he’s nothing to hide. Niall spends too much time with Harry in public not to have gotten a little confused by how much of him is real, and how much is just what he chooses to show.

“You got lube?” Harry asks. 

Niall roots around in his case till he finds the little sachet. “‘Course I do,” he says. “Always prepared, that’s me.” 

“In the emotional sense, yeah,” says Harry. “In the Boy Scout way, I reckon that’d be Liam.” 

Niall climbs back onto bed and settles beside him. “What d’you mean?” he asks. He proffers Harry the tube, and Harry takes it and squeezes some lube out on Niall’s fingers. 

Jamming a pillow under his bum, Harry says, “You know, like. The way you knew it’d not be forever, I guess. I don’t know. The way you let it go easy.” 

“Not over yet,” Niall murmurs, because that’s what he’s been clinging to.

Harry grabs his wrist and tries to direct his hand, but Niall knows how to finger someone just fine, thank you. Harry closes his eyes at the first wet press. “But like,” Harry says. He stops for so long while Niall carefully works his finger in that he reckons the conversation’s over. “You didn’t let it change you. Cos it was always a part of you.” 

Niall starts working his ring finger in alongside his middle finger. Privately that’s his biggest fear. That he didn’t let it change him. That he’ll come out of it on the other side the exact same as when he went in, and something like this is meant to change you, right? He’s meant to feel like he conquered the world, and he did, but he’s still Niall. He doesn’t feel like he could do it again if he wanted. He’s not even sure he would if he could. 

Harry shifts on the sheets and tilts his head back, exposing the long smooth line of his throat, and Niall might be going home again same as he left, but not without gaining anything. He leans over to kiss Harry again, who grinds down on his fingers. “‘M ready,” he says, so Niall rolls a condom on and fits himself between Harry’s legs. 

“What the fuck,” Niall starts. Mixed in with the rest of Harry’s insane tattoos on his Doodle Bear body is one just above his neatly manicured pubic hair which really, Harry, what the fuck. It’s a tiny little cartoon bull and the words, “Ride me.” “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he says. “I thought you were joking.” 

“So did the artist,” Harry laughs. He knees Niall in the shoulder, gently. “What?”

“I just can’t believe I’m about to shag someone with ‘ride me’ on their dick,” Niall says, knows it’s true. What the hell kind of rockstar moment with no less than Harry Styles, who spent the van ride to the stadium this morning reading sugar glider facts to Niall because he wants a pet. And that was Niall’s life, he thinks.

Harry makes a wild grab for Niall’s shoulders when he starts the slow press in, Harry’s blunt nails scraping down the tops of his arms like he wasn’t going fast enough. Sweat rolls down his back, pools in the hollow of Harry’s throats and his collarbones. They’re absolutely filthy, which makes it all the much better, the satisfaction of needing to shower again when it’s over. Harry tangles himself up around Niall till he can’t hardly move if he wanted to. 

“It’ll be over too fast,” Harry laughs. He keeps touching Niall’s back and the deep flush in the middle of his chest and the ladderlike slats of his ribs. “Don’t want it to be over so soon.” 

Niall concentrates on staying still. Finally he ventures, “Want to ride me?”

Harry nods vigorously. “Yes, let’s, do it like that.” So Niall pulls out and they fumble around to switch places, Harry’s hair somehow getting in Niall’s mouth and Niall’s bracelet in Harry’s eye. Finally, he’s on his back looking up at Harry, whose peachy skin is flushed, his eyes fever bright. Suddenly he realizes that they never turned any music back on, so all he can hear is Harry’s unsteady breath and the thudding of his heart in his own ears. 

“Go slow,” Niall says, not knowing why. 

Harry sinks down on him the same way Harry gets into a scalding hot bath: all at once. It’s too much, too fast, and Niall hisses through his teeth. Harry’s mouth has fallen open, and Niall thinks, stupidly, about how he wouldn’t mind if Harry kissed him right now. Then he starts working himself slowly, carefully, inevitably toward the end. 

It’s hard to say Niall’s never felt closer to Harry, because he’s helped him write songs and rubbed his back when the press broke his heart and caught his eye when their lives took off, over and over again. “Hey,” he says. 

Harry looks down at him, his plush pink lips still ajar, his eyes glazed. “Hm?” 

“I’d tell you a chemistry joke,” Niall says, “but I know I wouldn’t get a reaction.” 

It takes a moment for Harry’s sex-addled mind to get the joke, and then he comes with a laugh, breathless and hard. Niall licks his lips and gives Harry’s come a taste, and what do you know, he’s right. Does taste better. 

Harry climbs off and lays down beside Niall on the mattress. He cards his fingers through Niall’s sweaty hair. “Love you, Nialler,” Harry says. “Glad we did this.” 

“Yeah,” says Niall. “To both, I mean. Me too.” 

Harry kisses the side of his nose and then he climbs off the bed. He starts rooting around the thick hotel carpet for his clothes. “Go to sleep,” he says. “See you tomorrow before the show.” 

The show goes on without anything being any different. It’s just Harry, Niall thinks, watching him spout water at the crowd like their own tiny whale. The way Harry’s face looks when he comes is just another private piece of information Niall knows about him, like how he takes his steak and how hard he’s tried to have it all tattooed on before he loses it. 

Before Niall knows it, he’s halfway round the world, his shoulders sunburnt and aching and the band a distant memory. Not so distant. Seems they live in Niall’s heart, really, there’s no escaping them. “I miss it,” Niall says, when Harry rings him up to talk about the pros and cons of adopting a pet turtle. “Even miss you.” 

Harry’s quiet. “That’s a good thing, right?” he asks, at length. “Means we got out in time.” 

“Ah,” says Niall, fights the feeling that he might cry. “Don’t say that.” 

“Okay,” Harry hums, inanely. He’s already said it. “Talked to Bobby. He says he misses you. You should go home.” 

Niall nods even though Harry can’t see him. Yeah. He knows it, too. “Been thinking about what you said,” he blurts. “About it not changing me. Think it did, though. Think it all did.” 

“I know,” says Harry, fond. “I miss you.” And maybe outside the bubble of One Direction, out there in the real world, Niall can figure out what that means.

Right now, he just says, “I’ll talk to you soon, then, Styles.”

“Horan,” Harry says, and rings off. 

The next time Harry goes to the tattoo shop, he sends Niall a pic of the finished product, still red and angry-looking. It’s a dingy-looking little thing, hardly something like the artsy ones Liam or Zayn get. It’s just a simple little arrow mixed in with all the others on the inside of Harry’s arm. Niall saves it to his camera roll, and then he gets up, and he moves on. 


	19. monday morning you look so fine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an au where niall is harry's professor (though there's no age gap, so no real major warnings; also, harry has a kid.)

The last problem Niall expected to run into when he landed his first lecturer gig as a doctoral candidate at UPenn was having an affair with one of his students. He always reckoned he just had too much sense for that, thanks, and gone on to fret about what if they hated him, what if he couldn’t stop stuttering through his lectures, what if he threw up and passed out in the middle of the classroom. Stuff like that. 

He hadn’t reckoned on Harry Styles, is the thing. 

Fresh lecturers usually land the sweet gig of teaching the most boring introductory courses available on the class catalogue, which is fine and all because usually your students pass even if they’re just coasting on alcohol fumes and mom and dad pressuring them to at least give the first semester a shot and see how they feel. But Harry wasn’t any more a fresh-faced eighteen year-old than Niall himself, which is part of the reason he landed himself in this mess. 

“Look,” Louis says, handing Niall another Stella with a much too pleased expression on his face, “you just kissed him, right? So all you have to do is tell him you’re not going to kiss him anymore, and you’re aces. Maybe even fail him on an assignment just to show him you’re not going to pass him because he’s got a magic tongue.” 

“He’s the best student in my class,” Niall laments, with his head down on the bar. The wood is chipped and sticky and Niall reckons there’s probably enough bacteria on it for him to colonize Mars and give rise to habitable life in a few million years. Which is a lot. He sighs miserably. Harry is his best student, and Niall couldn’t deny he’d been pleased when Harry would actually answer one of his questions or showed that he’d done the readings Niall assigned. Part of him, unbelievably, is most tossed up by the fact that he wonders if Harry was just flirting with him all along. 

“You’re dense as a fucking log if you think he was just trying to get into your pants,” says Zayn, on his other side. “You’re too good for that, love.” 

Niall doesn’t know if he means too good to think that or too good at his job for that to be the case, but he doesn’t feel like either is true. One time Harry came into class with shadows under his eyes so dark they looked like bruises, so Niall hadn’t woken him up when he fell asleep with his head in his hand. It’d felt. It’d felt like taking care of him, in some weird, small way, which is not the sort of thing a teacher should feel for his student, and yet. 

“This is why you should’ve gotten laid when we went out the other night,” Louis says. “You’re just hard-up, that’s all. C’mon, get under someone else tonight and start moving on.” He elbows Niall sharply in the side, the smile on his face all friendly challenge. His shoulders slump. “I know it sucks, but you obviously can’t date one of your students. Even if he’s not even a year younger than you.” 

“Right,” says Niall. He takes a deep breath and peels his face off the table. Zayn carefully puts his glasses back on the bridge of his nose the right way. His face is all apologetic, so Niall doesn’t fight it. It’s even nice, in a way, to have the logic read out to him. You don’t sleep with your students. You certainly don’t think about bringing a coffee in for them or incorporating a lecture on entropy vs. infinity into your syllabus because Harry mentioned once, after class, how much he liked _Arcadia_. 

So he gets piss drunk and Zayn pulls over to let him throw up on the side of the road, and he spends all day Saturday moping about feeling sorry for himself and hungover. By Sunday, his apartment is positively sparkling it’s so clean and he’s decided he won’t slip up again. Louis’s right. Even Liam would agree with him, which happens far more often now than it used to, if he weren’t on an oil rig somewhere singing the theme song from Armageddon all the live-long day.  
It’s unethical. He could lose his spot in the program, and then he’d never be able to work with NASA as an environmental scientist for the Mars colonization project. 

Niall’s plan is going very well, if he might say so himself, by midday Monday. Harry’s texted him twice – never mind that he has Niall’s number or that their text history goes back twenty-four long scrolls – to say _TGIM_ and _How far down does a rutabaga’s roots grow_ , which is the least cohesive pun Niall’s ever heard. His fingers itch to tell Harry so.

But ultimately it’s Bobby’s voice in the back of his head every time Niall thinks about Harry’s smooth tongue sliding against his or the way his hands felt knotting in Niall’s hair. Niall’s done a lot of things to embarrass his poor mom but none to shame her, nor his dad, because that’s important. 

The plan works right up until Harry slips into the classroom right as the clock ticks from 2:29 to 2:30 with a toddler hooked under his arm. Niall feels his face go blank and smooth while his class passes out today’s PowerPoint outline to fill in, because he might have to take them by the hand, but he’ll make damn sure they all pass. 

Harry bows his head in close to Niall’s, so that Niall can smell the coconut oil he puts in his hair and the hint of something sweet on his breath, like strawberry cheesecake. “Sorry,” he murmurs. “Emailed you, but.” The kid in Harry’s arms blinks owlishly up at Niall. When he catches Niall’s eyes on him, he smiles megawatt bright, an exact mirror image of Harry. “My mom has an appointment, can’t watch him. Can I stay?” 

“Course,” Niall says, the word coming out gruff under his natural inclination to tell Harry no, and then panic and bail the next time they make plans because the fear of being bad at a relationship is always stronger than his interest in being in one. This is his student, and not his friend, though. Which makes it. Alright. Safe. 

There’s no chance Harry will ask him to watch the kid or even keep him company while Harry runs off to the bathroom or something, so there’s no chance Niall will want to do a good job and somehow wind up Little Albert-ing this kid into permanent psychological damage. 

Niall _likes_ kids. They usually like him, too. But there’s no point in letting himself get all warm and cozy and comfortable when Harry’ll be done with this class in a couple of months and then it’s, See ya around, thanks for making that one a little more bearable. Niall’s good at making things a little more bearable. He’s just not good at outlasting his usefulness. 

Niall swallows. He curls the sheaf of papers in his hands, gives himself a moment to collect himself, and then he strides back up to the aged laptop at the podium to give today’s lecture. Harry’s kid, Jasper – Harry’s talked about him, a little, with the same wonderment that Niall reserves for the Voyager project – is well-behaved, because he sits through the lecture at the desk next to Harry’s and eats the Starburst Harry unwraps for him and taps away at his Leapfrog Learning Pad. He’s hardly a distraction at all, really. 

Still, Niall keeps glancing over at him and Harry, like. He doesn’t know. For God’s sakes, it’s not like it matters what they think of him, not like it matters that Jasper handed Niall a candy while he was walking by and when Niall tried to hand it back to him, now unwrapped, he’d insisted, “It’s for you!” Not like that should feel like winning the Nobel prize for standing around and having full control of his fine motor skills. 

It kinda does, though. 

Harry’s the last person out of the lecture hall, not least because he spills his candy wrappers all over the dingy carpet when he stands up out of his seat. Niall helps him clean them up. “Sorry again about bringing him in,” Harry says, Jasper’s red-blond head leaned against Harry’s shoulder, his hand on his dad’s leg for balance. He looks. They look. 

“‘Course,” Niall says again. Then, because he knows more than the one word, Jesus, he says, “He wasn’t a bother at all. Like a big kid already, you are,” he tells Jasper, who tilts his little chin up with pride.

“And,” Harry rushes on, “about the other thing.” He actually puts his hands over Jasper’s ears and whispers, “The kissing thing,” as if Niall doesn’t remember Harry’s leg sliding between his with astonishing clarity. 

Niall knows he’s blushing so he says, “Yes, I know what you mean, Christ.”

Harry stands liquidly but it takes Niall a moment longer to follow on his bad knee. For a moment he’s left alone at eye level with Jasper, who tilts his head and flashes his dimples at Niall. It’s like they’re a tag team of goodness, Niall thinks. Like when they put icing on glazed donuts. 

“Can I come by your office hours tomorrow?” Harry asks. His eyes are wide and green and the worst part is, Niall doesn’t even want to say no. He’s always known himself to be decidedly uncool, a little awkward and nervy and sometimes too loud, other times too quiet, but he can see the way Harry looks at him. And somehow Harry thinks he’s, like. The kind of person you’d risk your future for, maybe. 

Niall says yes. 

That’s how he finds himself stationed firmly behind his desk when Harry knocks on his door and steps into what Niall’s pretty sure used to be a cupboard, the room is so small. That’s how he finds himself standing up when Harry drops his bag by the door. 

Niall meets Harry’s mouth halfway. He can feel the dimples crease Harry’s cheeks when he smiles, and his heart aches, it’s so good. Harry climbs straight over the desk when he gets too impatient having it between them; he knocks Niall’s mug full of pens to the floor and accidentally shuts his laptop with his knee, and it’s all Niall’s fault, because he keeps kissing him through it. Harry settles on the edge of the desk and pulls Niall in with his fingers hooked through Niall’s belt loops, Niall’s lip won between his teeth. 

Harry pushes Niall’s suit jacket off his shoulders. Niall got it on sale from JCPenney’s last winter, so he lets it drop. His heart just about stops when Harry leans back onto his elbows, his bottom lip caught between his teeth. He looks him over like – like Niall’s doing something a hell of a lot more interesting than standing there between his thighs, feeling like he just popped a couple of Adderall and climbed out of an ice bath at the same time. 

“What,” Niall asks, hoarsely. 

“Just been wanting to do that since first day is all,” Harry says. He sits up and pulls Niall back in with a hand curled round his tie. They kiss lazily, now, and he drags his hands down Niall’s chest, curls his fingers around Niall’s hips. 

“Hell,” Niall says, without any heat in it. “Said I wouldn’t do this.” He watches Harry stick his fingers through the gaps between the buttons in his shirt and wiggle his fingers against his stomach, and he doesn’t protest. 

Harry swallows. “Yeah.” 

 _Is it ‘cos I’m your teacher?_ Niall wants to ask. Somehow he can’t bring himself to raise the question, not with Harry’s hand curved possessively round his ass.   


“I can wait,” Harry murmurs. “I mean. If that’s a thing, like. I don’t know. I’m not exactly, like. Got a kid, I know that that, er.” He clears his throat. “But maybe. When class is over.” 

Niall fights the feeling in his chest, like his heart’s trying to burst. “Maybe,” he offers weakly. “We can try.” 

Harry’s whole face lights up. Niall’s only thought when he bows his head back down to Harry is that the next two months are either going to be the best or the worst of his life so far. Maybe both, depending on how you look at it. He kisses Harry back like a promise.


	20. with you forever i'll stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an american uni au, feat. zarriall as childhood friends

Harry’s the one who suggests getting their fortunes read by the puppet inside the fortune-telling box on the pier. Atlantic City makes for a great song but it’s not half the attraction it used to be, not since Bruce sang about the boys on the boardwalk when times got tough.

There was this sick episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog that a fortune teller was in, but Niall can’t remember any more details of it than color: acid green, neon blue, inky black. His friends are tinged with those faintly unreal colors now as though there’s something magic about them, the way all kids believe in magic even the littlest bit.

Zayn leans sleepily into Niall’s side with a faint smile curling up the edges of his mouth. “You’re like Dad,” he’d told Niall once. “I’m like Mum. Look at our baby.” He’d pointed to Harry, who was careening into the goal post with his head bent down and his eyes on the soccer ball. Zayn gives Niall the same indulgent smile now, so Niall refrains from commenting on how a puppet wearing a dress named “Lady Mystery” whose animatronic eyes lit up. A recorded voice says, “Insert twenty-five cents to hear your fortune, if you dare!”

Harry feeds the machine a quarter, and nothing happens, so he shrugs and adds four more till Lady Mystery shudders. Harry looks back at Zayn and Niall, who wait for him patiently on the windy boardwalk on this spring break home from uni. Zayn’s at RISD, Harry got into Brown, Niall’s paying his way through state school busing tables at night. It’s not quite fighting dragons, like they’d dreamt of as a gaggle of little boys living on the same street that went gray at dawn, green and shaded in the middle of summer when they spent all day riding their bikes or playing pickup games of baseball, and the air smelled so sweet.

Harry selects a button (“Dare to Dream”) and Lady Mystery says, in her staticky robotic voice, “Behold your fate!” A card is spewed out of the bottom of the machine like a receipt from a gas station. Harry plucks it out and reads aloud, “You will lose.” He frowns. “Well, that wasn’t very nice.”

“You’ll lose a bunch of quarters,” Niall mutters, not least amused, and Zayn muffles a laugh into his shoulder. “You know it doesn’t mean anything. This thing’s probably been here since the 1970s.”

Harry offers Niall and Zayn a smile, and then he shrugs with the force of someone throwing off a weight. He says, “Yeah. Have you guys played Five Nights at Freddie’s yet?”

They amble down the boardwalk and ride the Ferris Wheel for old time’s sake. Steel Pier looks like a park toy itself, like something you could buy with enough Skee Ball tickets and Zayn’s unerring aim. Niall closes his eyes when their basket rocks to a halt at the very top, and Harry tucks himself under Niall’s arm, fits his hand under Niall’s on Niall’s knee.

Niall cracks his eyes open to find Zayn smiling at them, and even though they’re both right here with him, Niall misses them. Zayn offers him some of his cotton candy. “You look sour,” he offers, at length. “Sweeten up, love.”

So Niall takes a bite. He threads his fingers through Harry’s hair and only pulls a little, by accident, when the wheel lurches into motion again. He doesn’t necessarily miss them less, preemptively, but the taste on his tongue is sweet, and he has them now.

Zayn drives them through Wendy’s for burgers and shakes in the 1974 Chevy Malibu he borrowed off of Doniya for the night. Harry passes Niall back his drink and slurps noisily from his vanilla shake with Lady Mystery’s card in his hand. Zayn clocks him eyeing it and says, “You know, might be a good thing, like. Maybe you’ll lose this baby fat,” he takes his hand off the wheel to pinch Harry’s cheek, “and a few inches off that hair.”

“I look like Bon Jovi,” Harry says amiably. “I look like a rock star.”

“You look like a mop head,” Niall offers, and pitches his straw wrapper out the window even though he knows it’s littering. It doesn’t feel like littering, though. It feels like paying his armload of boardwalk game tickets, like a token sacrifice to the universe for this night.

Zayn flicks his cigarette butt out the window and laughs loud over the wind, Harry and Niall joining in like a bunch of wolves howling at the moon.

“Give me your hand,” Zayn tells Harry when they pull up to a flashing railroad cross way. Niall can hear the train whistle and Zayn’s already put the car in park, so Niall leans forward and puts his chin on the top of Zayn’s seat.

Harry curls his hand up to his fist. “Is this like the blood oath thing? Because if we’re doing that again I want to be prepared this time, instead of you stabbing me with the plastic knife you got from McDonald’s -”

“Harry,” says Zayn. Niall tilts his head. Harry gives his hand over. Zayn tucks a spare cig behind his ear and pulls Harry’s hand into his lap. Both he and Niall peer at Harry’s palm.

“They teach this at art school?” Niall asks. He tickles the back of Zayn’s neck. “Art 101, Fortunetelling for Beginners, PhotoShop for college kids who still watch Naruto?”

“Shut up,” Zayn says fondly. “Nah. Waliyha’s little friends taught it to her. She read my fortune, she says I’m to be rich and famous.”

Harry and Niall exchange a smile. “Well, of course, Zaynie,” says Harry sweetly. “We’ve been saying that since you were old enough to hold a marker, dork.”

Zayn sniffs and plucks the glasses hanging off Niall’s collar to wear on his own face, like some kind of hideously beautiful librarian. “Let’s see,” he purrs. “Ah yes. Fate line, life line. Both strong. Mmhm. Lots going on here.”

“Laying it on a bit thick,” Niall murmurs. Zayn only smiles.

“Nothing here about losing, ‘cept maybe your marbles. All’s well, The Great Haroldini. Nothing to lose.”

Harry chews over his bottom lip. “Show me your palm, yeah. I want to see if we’ll be friends forever.”

“Nialler, get in on this,” Zayn says, so Niall thrusts his hand out as ordered.

Their palms are the same shade of red as the brake lights from the car stopped in front of them, and their faces are thrust into dramatic shadow that only serves to make them look incredibly young. And timeless. Niall reckons they’d look so familiar even fifty years older, half a dozen kids between them and two dozen grandkids.

“See?” asks Zayn, soft. “Don’t need to look at the other stuff. We’ve got our own life and fate lines right here.” He touches the pad of his thumb to the jagged scar Niall got when he was nine and they figured being blood brothers was a good idea.

Zayn presses his palm to Niall’s and Harry closes his fingers around Zayn’s wrist like they’re some kind of proper witch circle, and it - it feels a little like magic, the best kind.

The train finally finishes speeding past, and the train track guards slowly rise back up to let traffic past. Zayn lets off the parking brake and puts the car back in gear, so Niall sits back in his seat and watches the miles pass through his window. He strokes his finger over the palm of his hand, slow and soothing, like a reminder. Zayn keeps driving.


	21. take any grand notion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> harry and niall become each other's dates to their exes' wedding, which turns out to be better than either of them expected. (au)

Niall runs into Liam’s ex at his favorite coffee shop off Corporation Street at Second Cup Coffee where he’s gone, ironically, for his third cup of coffee for the day. Too much coffee always gives him a right case of the shits but he’s really trying to hold off on that today; he needs to get those reports done for his supervisor before he gets named Manchester’s Worst Curator. Louis deserves that title way before Niall does. 

Liam’s ex is wearing that green and gold Packers beanie, otherwise Niall wouldn’t have recognized him. He did one semester abroad to Los Angeles when they were in uni and he thinks he’s some sort of expatriate, or something. Niall rolls his eyes and places his order to the barista, and then he goes to tap Liam’s ex on the shoulder. He’s got one of those adjectival names, like Tall or Skinny. Something like that. 

The guy jumps in his seat and somehow his face hasn’t even managed to look surprised; he still looks like a miserable sod, and between wanting to laugh and pat his cheek, Niall feels his brow crease. Suddenly he remembers Liam and his boyfriend’s soft face, and the way he’d always pull the edge of his beanie lower with the same sad look, like he didn’t want to be miserable but he wasn’t sure how to make himself not. 

Niall clears his throat. “Hey,” he starts. “I’m not sure if you remember me, I’m Niall.” 

“Oh, God,” says the bloke. “It’s you.” 

“Well,” says Niall, rocking back and forth on his heels and toes. “I mean, yes.”   
“Sorry,” Liam’s ex says. He wipes his hand on his jeans – a nice gesture, really – and then holds it out for Niall to shake. His palm is cold but dry, and Niall squeezes it once before he lets go. “I meant that in a good way. Like, ‘oh, God, what a lovely surprise!’” 

“Uh-huh,” Niall says. 

“I’m Harry,” Harry reintroduces himself. “And my manners are normally unimpeachable, I swear.” 

Niall smiles. “I remember,” he says. He remembers watching Harry over Zayn’s shoulder walking around the party with a trash bag tossing bottles of beer and red Solo cups into it while everybody else passed out on the floor or staggered out the door to get a cab home. “It’s nice to see you again, after – er.” 

Technically Liam and Harry broke up before Zayn and Niall did, but not for long. He only vaguely remembers a few nights out to the pub or a club with Zayn under increasingly tense silence until Zayn finally cracked and admitted that he was in love with someone else, which – well. Niall’s all for finding true love. He just wishes he hadn’t been a casualty of someone else’s love story. 

“The thing is,” he remembers Zayn saying, “I don’t think I could’ve, like, let myself love them if not for you, so I’m really –” his voice cracked on a sob, “I really love you.” 

So they’d stayed friendly for a while, but it was easy to go back to their own friend groups, and Zayn never had any social media to keep up with, so Niall’s latest failed relationship went the way of the rest of them and faded quietly into another of the heavy memory albums he carries around in the bookshelf of his heart. Full of useless knowledge, he is. 

“I was sorry to hear about that,” Niall offers lamely. In point of fact he’s surprised they didn’t break up sooner, although he remembers the depth of feeling in Harry’s eyes pretty well. Niall remembers thinking that Harry deserved better, somehow. Not that Liam wasn’t a perfectly decent guy – he brought snacks to all of their business class’s study sessions final year so they pulled together to get him through – but he just, like. 

Okay, like this one time the four of them were out to brunch and Harry’s omelet came with oregano in, and Niall watched him pick at his eggs for the whole meal. And Liam hadn’t really noticed. Which, like. It wasn’t really Niall’s place to notice either, so. 

Harry looks surprised. “You aren’t angry?” 

Niall raises an eyebrow. “Why would I be angry?” 

“Because they dumped us for each other,” Harry says plainly. Niall’s face must do something because Harry’s drops into a panic, and he says, “Whoops, sorry, you didn’t know, I’m so sorry, it wasn’t my place to say. I’m terribly sorry, I –”

“Christ, stop apologizing,” Niall says. His drink is up but he just sinks down onto the battered pleather sofa next to Harry. “It’s not your fault.” Harry reaches over hesitantly as if to pat Niall’s shoulder, and then he drops his hand to the top of Niall’s bum knee and squeezes. Niall clears his throat. “So, you – so what are you so miserable about? Is everything okay?” 

Harry hums and shrugs. The note is high and sweet, and Niall bites the inside of his cheek so that he won’t let out a disbelieving little laugh. “They’re getting married,” he says. 

“Oh,” Niall says, with a feeling inside his chest like a book snapping shut. It pinches his fingers a little, metaphorically speaking, like maybe he wasn’t done reading yet. It hurts. He swallows and clears his throat again. The barista calls that his order is up so Niall mindlessly fetches the cup of coffee that he doesn’t even want anymore and sits back down beside Harry, like they’re two of the blokes at his great-great-aunt’s wake last summer. He wishes he had some brandy for his coffee. 

Harry picks something up off the chipped coffee table in front of him and smooths the bent edges over with the tips of his fingers like he doesn’t even know he’s doing it.

Niall swallows and asks, “Is that – that’s an invitation?” 

Harry hands it over without a word, so Niall reads in Zayn’s handmade curving script, _Mr. Liam James Payne and Zayn Javadd Malik would like to invite you to their upcoming nuptials…_ Niall’s eyes get caught on Zayn’s name in those beautiful curling letters until he feels like they’re twining all over the page like ivy climbing the side of a house, and then he hands the card back to Harry. 

“I see why you’re wearing that dumb sad hat,” Niall says. “I like it, you know.”

Harry touches his beanie self-consciously. He offers Niall a smile that softens from the edges in, like he’s a gallon of ice cream. “It’s not like I’m not over him, you know? I guess I just thought, like, I don’t know. He was the first person I could see myself marrying.” 

“And then he invites you to the wedding,” Niall snorts. He wonders why Zayn didn’t invite him. Harry nods slowly, his elegant fingers picking at the hole in his jeans. “You know,” Niall says, “you know, if you want to, like, maybe show them how, like, better off you are. I dunno. Want to go together?” 

Harry sits upright in his seat. 

“If you don’t already have someone,” Niall backpedals, “I mean, I’m not –”

“Are you kidding?” Harry asks. His eyes are wide and green and Niall realizes that Harry’s hoping that he’s not. It’s been a long time since someone sounded that way about Niall. “It’d drive Liam mad – just a little bit, you know, just as much as I think he deserves. He used to hate it when we’d talk, he was so jealous. Do you have a suit? What color’s your tie?” 

“Um,” Niall says. Jealous? “I don’t know?” 

Harry moves as if to tuck his hair behind his ear, but his hand meets his hat instead. “I’ll come over. Yeah?” 

Niall nods. “I mean, sure, yeah.” 

“Do you still have that flat with all those Irish people?” Harry asks, sounding friendly and interested and not at all like Zayn used to, as though the thought of socializing with all of Niall’s flatmates had preemptively exhausted him. Niall nods and Harry smiles wide, just the corners of it a little sad. “Does tomorrow work for you?” 

“Sure,” Niall shrugs. “Wait, no, I’ve got to give a presentation. How about the day after?” 

Harry nods definitively. His curls bounce around his face and he looks cherubic and a little exciting, like the first time Niall ever stayed on the Tube past his stop so that he could wander his way home from Piccadilly Circus or Covent Garden. A little like that. “See you day after tomorrow,” he says. 

***

Harry texts Niall _I’m here_ and then knocks on the door without hardly a second between, so Niall hurries out of his bedroom with his t-shirt still caught round his shoulders and his trackies slipping down his hips. He loves his job, just the suit and tie thing is taking a while to get used to. 

Harry smiles into Niall’s eyes and then his gaze skips down over Niall’s body, back up again with a curious feverish glint to him. Niall wonders if he’s getting sick. 

“You didn’t have any trouble finding the place?” he asks, because he reckons that’s a polite thing to ask. Niall doesn’t really consider himself to be a polite guy when friendly is on the table, but something about Harry makes him want to seem presentable, like someone Harry would be proud to bring to his ex’s wedding just to show him up. 

Shaking his head, Harry steps over the threshold and wipes his boots on the welcome mat. He shrugs off his knee-length coat to reveal a fine silk tie loosely knotted around his throat. Niall finally gets his arms through the sleeves of his t-shirt and gives it a doubtful look. He trots to the kitchen to put on a pot of tea while Harry fingers the soft-looking material of his tie. 

“I don’t want us to clash,” he tells Niall seriously. “We have complementary body types, you know. Um, hi,” he draws out the word, “Laura?” 

Laura sizes Harry up with one eyebrow raised. She takes in Niall’s rumpled shirt, Harry’s out of place tie, and the look on Niall’s face, and she smiles. “Yes, it’s nice to see you again. Harry, is that right? Niall didn’t say you were coming by.” 

“I told one of you,” Niall says, knowing full well it was Bressie. He also knows they’re shagging but they don’t want anyone to know, so they’re pretending not to talk at the minute. It’s very frustrating when Niall’s trying not to seem like an unpolished rock.  “Can’t help it if the lot of you are like a bunch of chummy birds regurgitatin’ shit into each others’ mouths.” 

Harry cocks his head at Niall. “I forgot you did that,” he says. 

“What?” Niall asks. Laura slides off the kitchen counter and ruffles Niall’s hair on her way by. She smells like flowers, and Niall lets her go without forcing the issue. She and Bressie will come forth, or not, as they please.

“Talk like that,” Harry answers vaguely. “I don’t know. It’s weird. It’s Irish. I like it.” 

“Thank you,” Niall says. He’s acutely aware of his own accent. He boils them a pot of tea and then he ushers Harry up to his bedroom, where he promptly spills a bit of tea onto the wooden floor. Niall returns from the loo with a bunch of bog roll in his hand and finds Harry digging around under his bed. “What the fuck?” Niall asks. He can’t tell if he’s exasperated or amused. Maybe a bit of both. 

Harry offers him a smile. “You’ve got about a hundred issues of Air and Space hidden down here, did you know?” 

“They’re not hidden, they’re in storage,” Niall says, his cheeks flaming. Harry doesn’t press, so Niall doesn’t tell him about how badly he wants to work in an aeronautics museum where he can restore real planes with his hands. He used to help his da restore cars in their garage to sell for an extra bit of cash that went straight into a college fund that Bobby surprised him with on his eighteenth birthday. If they both got a little teary, well, no one needs to know. 

Niall crouches down to clean up the mess. Harry tries to take the paper towels out of Niall’s hands but he’s already got the mess cleaned up, so he puts the wad of soggy bog roll into yesterday’s Styrofoam takeout box and closes the lid. There. He’ll get rid of the whole mess tonight. Niall sighs and puts his back against his chest of drawers. Harry sits back on his heels. 

“I’ve been thinking,” Harry says, so Niall wraps his hand around his tea like he’s his own nan reaching out for a source of comfort. It’s not like these are the Troubles or anything, but Harry has that look on his face, like Louis urging Niall to ride the fastest rollercoaster at the amusement park. And Niall could never say no. 

Niall picks at the chip in the ceramic. “Yeah?” he ventures. “What about?” 

Harry shrugs. “I dunno. Doesn’t matter, I suppose.” His eyes rove over the ceiling, where Niall’s posted a bunch of star maps he printed out on the museum’s special thick paper. He went over the stars later with a glitter pen he begged off Danielle, too, so that the whole room looks to be lit by starlight at nighttime. 

Niall bites his lip. “Looks cool with the lights off. You wanna see?” 

Redecorating his room was one of those post-break up things Niall did in order to feel like he was moving on with his life. Funny how it’s only now, so much later, that he feels it’s true. He also cut his hair short round the sides and had his lip pierced. His hair’s grown out now and he never wears the lip piercing in anymore. Time goes on. 

Harry nods agreeably, so Niall unfolds himself from the floor and flips the lights off. A cloudless night’s sky lights up above his bed and a smile unfurls itself across Harry’s face, deep and wide and genuine, like the lines of a constellation. He drops onto the end of Niall’s bed with his toes touching the floor and his hands folded across his stomach, a smile on his face. Niall dithers, unsure what to do, and then he joins him. 

“I hadn’t thought about him for ages, you know?” Harry asks, as if out of the blue. “It’s not like I’m still in love with him. Not like I haven’t moved on. It’s just weird, you know? I always hope that I’m leaving as big an impression on the person I love as they are on me, and most of the time, I’m not.” He heaves a breath. “I think maybe I’m just one of those people, you know? I love a lot better than I’m worth loving.” He sounds only a little sad when he says, “It’s a good thing, probably.” 

Niall puts his hand over Harry’s on his stomach. “That sounds like a load of bollocks,” Niall finally says. He strokes the back of Harry’s hand with his thumb and sees himself, aged nine, watching his mum and dad split up and his brother walk out of his life all at the same time, and it’s. He never expected to see so much of himself in Harry, is all. This dweeb with the long hair and the long coat and soft hands. 

Niall thinks of Louis and his protective streak a mile wide, his blue eyes so warm the day he’d asked Niall to be Freddie’s godfather. Like he was making Niall a part of the family with the thing he loved most in the world.  

Harry’s smiling. “You think?” he asks. 

“I think there’s always someone gonna love you like a house on fire,” Niall says. “Like, the thing is coming down around you, what do you save? Yeah. Everybody’s got someone, and if you don’t, you just have to wait.” 

“Did anyone ever tell you you’re a sopping romantic?” Harry asks. He props himself up on his elbow to laugh down at Niall, who rolls his eyes good-naturedly and stands up to open his wardrobe door. 

Niall just says, “Shut the hell up and come help me pick out a tie, then.” 

“Wait,” Harry starts, “what color is your suit, though?” 

He stays late enough that they order takeout from the kebab place downstairs. Harry pads down in his socks and Niall’s house shoes to pick it up, Niall tipping the lovely woman who runs the place as heavily as he can on his meager curator’s salary, and then they pile onto the couch with Laura and Bressie, who definitely don’t look like they’ve just been making out, to watch Great British Bake-off. 

“This is the height of postmodern decadence,” Harry says, staring at his falafel with unfettered reverence. “Eating while we watch a show about eating. I love it. We are each of us an ourobouros.” 

“Ignore him,” Niall tells Bressie and Laura. “We’re in a mood tonight.” 

He sees Harry to the door an hour past his usual bedtime with Harry’s tie looped round his neck, one of Niall’s stuffed into Harry’s coat pocket. “See you Saturday, lover,” Harry says, casual as pie. 

Niall rolls his eyes. “Fuck’s sake. Let’s get donuts for the train ride, d’you think?” 

“You have the best ideas,” Harry says, and loops his arms around Niall’s neck in a hug. His body feels warm and solid and impossibly dear to Niall, like when he holds Theo and Theo fists his hands in Niall’s shirt to make sure Niall won’t let him down. It’s just, Zayn never held on back, really. Like this. It’s nice. “Later,” says Harry, and waves goodbye. 

Niall shuts the front door and turns to find Bressie and Laura eyeing him from the couch. Niall touches his face to make sure he’s not smeared in sauce. “What?” he asks. 

“Nothing,” Laura shrugs, and turns back to the TV with a smile curling up the corners of her mouth. 

“You look good together,” Bressie volunteers. 

Niall scowls. “Geroff with that. ‘M going to bed. Holler if someone breaks in, and only if someone breaks in,” he adds, just to be cheeky, and they usher him off to bed with laughter in their voices. 

It’s nice, Niall thinks, lying in bed with the sky drawn out in front of him like a road map to far-off places. He can see them now. They’re not out of reach. He has all these people who make his life feel like home, that aren’t Zayn. That are family, simple as that. 

Niall rolls over and goes to sleep. 

***

Harry shows up at Niall’s door in a houndstooth suit with Niall’s deep blue tie around his neck. He looks older, his contours more defined; he looks like the kind of bloke you’d ask to watch your laptop at the campus coffee shop, or the stranger at a party who volunteers to help bring the keg in because it seems like the right thing to do. Niall laughs so hard that Harry frowns and puts the back of his hand to Niall’s forehead. “What’s so funny?” he asks, a smiling edging along his mouth like light through the crack under the door. 

“You,” Niall just says. 

Harry preens. He offers Niall his arm, so Niall takes it. 

They stop for donuts on their way to the train station, where they have two connecting lines before they reach the garden where Zayn and Liam are getting married. 

Harry eats a donut and a half and decides he’s full, so Niall finishes his donut for him and watches the scenery roll past. Some of his old classmates can’t fathom why he’d stay in the same place he went to uni, but Niall couldn’t imagine leaving. This is the city where he grew up and grew roots. This is the city where he wants to keep growing. It’s a beautiful one, at that. 

“Hey,” says Harry. Niall looks at him. “I know we’re going to, like, show Zayn and Liam up. But what if we just had a really good time? That’d show ‘em up best, I think.” 

Niall understands what he’s trying to say. He smiles and pushes his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. Then he offers Harry his hand. “Niall Horan,” he says. 

Harry’s bottom lip slides out from between his teeth into a smile. “I’m Harry,” he says. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” 

Niall rests his head against the train seat and smiles at him. Harry grins back.   
The wedding is an extravagant affair, which doesn’t surprise either Niall or Harry. It suits Liam, who’d want to write his love across the stars, if given a chance. And it fits with Zayn, who Niall knows to be not so good with his words. He finds other ways of showing his love, though. Niall’s stomach cramps when he wonders how much Zayn took from their relationship that he uses now to make him and Liam work. 

Probably a lot. Probably everything. No matter how over it you are, it sucks to know that you were just the person before the right person. 

Harry slips his hand into Niall’s and gives him a gentle squeeze, so Niall says, “Whose side are we going to sit on?” and Harry freezes up while his mind whirs over the politest thing to do. 

“C’mon,” Niall says, and leads him over to sit beside Louis, who jostles Freddie on his knee with a smile on his face. “There’s my godson.” 

“You could’ve told me about this,” Niall whispers to Louis out of the corner of his mouth. 

“Wanted you to move on,” Louis whispers back. 

But, you know. It’s like his knee. Some injuries you have to test to know they’ve healed up alright. 

Harry spends most of the ceremony making faces at Freddie, whose giggles have to be muffled into his dad’s shoulder. He tears up a little when Zayn and Liam read each other their vows, which are short and sweet and simple. _My one and only_. It even brings a tear to Niall’s eye. Then Harry puts his warm mouth to Niall’s ear and whispers, “Bet I can beat you for the bouquet,” and the moment passes, and Niall laughs. 

The reception is held inside a nondenominational chapel just on the other side of the green, so Niall makes a beeline to the open bar to get himself and Harry a couple of Seven and Sevens. 

Harry reappears from the bathroom not a moment later to accept his drink. “Should we offer them our congratulations?” Harry asks. “Or whatever?” 

Niall watches Harry fidget with the tie he’s wearing, the one that matches Niall’s eyes. “D’you wanna make out in the coat closet, instead?” 

“I was thinking,” says Harry, his shoulders slumping in relief. “That’d be great, yes.” 

“Finish your drink first, Christ,” Niall says, when Harry starts pulling him through the great swell of Zayn’s and Liam’s extended family. “We don’t have to waste their booze, Jesus.” 

“Thanks for that, Nialler,” says Liam. He’s stood with his arm around Zayn, a small, satisfied smile on his face. The ring on his finger looks huge, even though it’s just a simple gold band. Niall swallows. 

Harry flashes Liam a perfect, blinding smile and says, “Oh, there you are! Niall and I,” he gestures between them, “wanted to offer our congratulations to you. You make a beautiful couple.” 

Niall understands the difference between polite and formal now. 

Liam’s face breaks into a smile of relief but Zayn’s eyes are trained on Niall, who tilts his head toward Harry. Zayn’s eyebrows rise fractionally, and then he hides his tongue behind his teeth, so Niall loops his arm round Harry’s waist and squeezes his soft hip. 

“It was nice to see you again,” Niall wraps it up, and means it. “We’ll have to keep in touch.” He doesn’t mean the last bit quite so much, he thinks. But it’s the kind of thing you say to someone so that they know in another life, it’d be alright. It’d all be alright. 

Harry stumbles into the vespers chapel with his mouth on the back of Niall’s neck, his hand curved around Niall’s jaw. “Is it weird if, like,” Harry asks, his breath making Niall shiver. “If, like, I want to commemorate moving on, like? I mean, you know.” He takes a deep breath, his mouth on the top of Niall’s shoulder now. Niall reaches back to squeeze his hip. “In the big way. The, like, ‘I’m not going to wonder what our future would’ve been like’ way anymore.” 

“No,” Niall murmurs. Feels it himself. “How’d you want to do it?” 

“Could get a tattoo,” Harry says. “Kind of thought, like. Maybe I could kiss you.” 

Niall turns to face him. He started his last relationship so purposefully. He’d told Zayn, “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wishing I’d told you I thought you were bloody gorgeous, mate, and your face is nice too.” He thought he had it all figured out, somehow. 

That’s the trick of restoration work. The pieces might have all come out of the puzzle but they don’t necessarily go back in the same way, and you never know what you’ll find out along the way. Niall pulls gently on his tie around Harry’s neck. “Yeah, can do,” he tells Harry, who goes right in for the kind of kiss that feels like diving, that Niall wishes he’d never have to surface from. 

Harry pulls back to let out a disbelieving little laugh, his mouth so red and slick, his whole face transformed by his smile. Niall starts working the tie off his neck and kisses him again, again, till he starts to wonder whether he can make Harry’s face stay like that. 

“Sometimes I wonder,” Harry says, untucking Niall’s shirt just so that he can run his fingers down Niall’s bare spine. “We could’ve met each other before we met them.” Harry’s eyes turn softer, somehow, almost like he’s asking for forgiveness.

Niall understands. He means they could’ve skipped over the broken hearts. He could’ve avoided the two weeks he spent going on like everything was perfectly fine after he and Zayn were over and that last night, when he’d torn his whole room apart and only noticed the next day that he’d bruised his own fingertips. The loneliness that comes after.

Niall thinks of Zayn letting him go on an “I love you” and how sometimes love is the worst thing to happen to you. And how sometimes it’s the one thing you carry with you out of a house on fire. Maybe they’re the same thing, after all. 

“Doesn’t matter,” Niall says. Like he’s rebuilding an old biplane or working with his dad in the garage so that he can go to uni someday, and how history only makes sense in reverse. He’d have found some way or another to love Harry. 

Harry smiles. 


	22. the things we had

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a zayn/louis/harry canon compliant fic from louis's pov; he tries to make peace.

Harry’s the first one, funnily enough, to make sense of it. He’s sent Louis a case of beer and an extra large pack of Huggies nappies with a note that reads, _Wishing you all the best_. 

Sometimes, more now that he doesn’t see the boys from the band every day and he doesn’t have to look out on crowds waving rainbow flags that’ve turned something great into a mockery of itself, he misses Harry. Or maybe it’s more true to say he misses the friend that he used to have before the band took Harry from him and gave him to Louis in equal measure, like some kind of diabolical inversion of the way friendship is meant to be. 

Louis sends him a thank you card along with all the other people who sent Freddie gifts for being born, and to his everlasting surprise, Harry follows up with a letter of his own. He’s just sent an envelope to Louis’s LA house with no return address, but Louis recognizes his handwriting from years of sitting two seats over from him at book signings. He’s sent Louis a playbill from _Mamma Mia!_ on West End, so Louis calls him up to demand, “You saw the fucking dad play when you could’ve seen _The Book of Mormon_?” 

Harry laughs. “Sure,” says Harry. “For you. I took some notes on how to be a dad if you want me to send them to you.” 

“Fuck,” says Louis. “Okay.” So Harry sends over a picture of his notebook, which is covered in his spidery scrawl. Louis can just about make out, _Singing – important_ , and then he rolls his eyes so hard that he thinks they might fall out of the sockets. “Idiot,” he says. 

“Tell Freddie hi for me,” Harry says, so Louis pushes his too-long hair back and worries over his bottom lip. Thinks about Briana breaking down in tears over some of the messages she’d gotten, that her mother had gotten, for doing nothing wrong. Louis wonders what she’d think if she knew he was talking to Harry again, because he’s feeling a little itchy under the collar, like he’s doing something wrong. 

Like someone’s going to catch him having a chat with a guy who used to be his best friend, and he’ll have to hang up really quick or offer a reason why he’d have no other choice but to talk to Harry, or he’ll have to lie. And it’s. Sometimes it’s hard for Louis to remember that he’s not the one who made their friendship something to feel guilty about, that it was some of their own fans. 

“You want to talk to him?” Louis asks. “I mean, he’s like a month old, he’s not going to talk back.” 

“Yes,” Harry says, because of course he does. So Louis creeps into his bedroom where Freddie’s little cot is set up and peeps in on his baby, who’s lying peacefully, his eyes roving all over the ceiling. Louis figures it must be so boring to be a newborn baby, but Briana says everything must be so new and scary that it makes sense to grow piece by piece, inch by inch. 

Piece by piece, Louis thinks. He puts Harry on speaker and listens to Harry ramble about how he’s got a film role he’s proper nervous about and his yoga classes and how staying in one place is so so hard, because he’s not actually very good at having relationships. He’s Harry Styles, Long Distance Friend. And Louis knows that Harry’s really saying all of this for him. 

Louis clears his throat quiet and tells Harry, “You’ve put him to sleep, mate,” when the novelty of a new voice has worn off and Louis’s infant son is sleeping silently again. “Thanks.” 

“No problem,” says Harry. 

Louis dithers for a moment too long, so Harry says, “I’ll let you go then. Thanks for letting me talk to him.” 

“Anytime,” Louis says. Harry’s hung up before Louis can even begin to wonder if he means it. 

For better or worse, Harry calls again a week later to talk about The Revenant, and whether or not he was supposed to feel worse for the horse than he did for Leo Dicaprio, and Louis just cradles his phone to the side of his face and stirs the macaroni and cheese boiling on the hob. 

“Mate,” he finally breaks in. 

Harry draws up short. “Hm?” he asks. 

Louis says, “Do you ever regret some of your tattoos?” It feels like an admission to so much as ask the question. 

Harry hums thoughtfully. “Is this about the one on your arse?” 

“No,” Louis says. “It’s about the ones you had covered.” And the fact that Louis can still see some of his, some of them ones he’s not really all that fond of anymore, anytime he looks down at himself. Sometimes looking at his own skin feels too intimate, like he’s walking around stark naked at all times with his heart written all over his skin. _Not heartbroken,_ Louis thinks. It can’t get much more obvious than that. Louis sighs. “The ones with Zayn.” 

“Oh,” says Harry. Louis can hear him shifting around. He’s probably doing yoga or some shit while he talks to Louis, which used to annoy the fuck out of him when they were in the band together and they were trying to decide whether their color scheme should be black and green or silver and white. It’s kinda funny how it’s alright that Harry’s distracted now, when Louis’s trying to talk about something personal with him. Like it should’ve been, maybe. 

Harry hums thoughtfully. “I don’t think it was really about covering them up for me? It was about adding to them.” 

“Explain,” says Louis, because he knows the more complicated his responses are, the longer and more roundabout Harry’s answers will get. 

“Like, Zayn left,” Harry starts slowly, “and there’s no ignoring that, or taking that back. He was our brother and he quit us, but One Direction went on, right? And we were still us, even though we were different after. So _Might as well…_ became, I don’t know.” He laughs. “There’s a lot of reasons why I might as well haven’t.” Harry’s quiet for a moment. “They’re still there, those tattoos, under the new ones. ‘M just adding to them.” 

Louis says, “Huh.” 

“I asked Niall once,” Harry says, fast, now, in a rush, “if, like, he stopped loving us. You know? Because that happens. Someone loves you, or they think they do, and then the glitter fades or the love gets worn away till it’s just a memory.” 

“He loved us,” Louis says, hard and sharp. Flat. Like the edge of a blade. “Zayn did.” 

Harry says quietly, “That’s what Niall said.” 

“Good old Nialler.” 

“Yeah,” Harry agrees. Louis can practically hear him chewing over his bottom lip. Louis turns the heat off and strains the noodles through a colander. “You know, me and him, we were _Why not_?, right? But you two, you were, like. You just did it. Just ‘cause you could.” 

“I don’t know,” Louis says, because he knows Harry’s right. “What exactly does that mean?” 

Harry goes quiet again and Louis’s not sure how to break the silence, not sure what’s alright for him to say or what will make Harry just go quieter still. He knows this boy - man, now - down to his bones and yet he doesn’t know him well enough not to tread on his toes. Ex-friends, Louis thinks. He wonders how much of “Love You Goodbye” was really about all the mates he thought he’d take with him out of the clouds of One Direction, and then he knows. Probably a lot. 

“I think,” Harry finally says. “It means exactly whatever you need it to mean, Lou.” He rings off like leaving the room without shutting the door, and Louis looks at his phone in his hand for a long moment, happ - no, that’s not quite the right word. Loved. Yeah, that’s the right one. 

Louis illegally downloads a copy of Zayn’s album the day it drops because he might be a maturing adult, but that doesn’t mean he’s ready to grow out of all his petty victories just yet. It’s a beautiful album. The worst - and maybe the best - part of it is that Louis can hear the stories in it. Stories about Niall and Harry and Liam and Perrie, people Louis’s known, too, and loved. 

And in a weird moment of clarity, he can hear Zayn on this album. All that time apart you think you don’t know someone anymore, that they must’ve changed to throw off all the ways you impacted them, like Harry covering his tattoos. The old marks are still there, but only for those that knew them. 

No. The new marks are there because the old ones were there first.

Louis looks for something to write on and finds an old Thank You note, one of the leftovers from Freddie’s baby shower. _I illegally downloaded your album,_ he writes to Zayn. _It was good._ He jots down another couple of meandering sentences and folds the notecard into an envelope and seals it shut without giving himself too much time to think. Even the stationery is marked with Thank You in bold, curling script. 

 _Wishing you all the best,_ Louis thinks, and of Harry. And he posts it. 


	23. when we were young

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an ex-ziall narry au. niall falls in love again.

You think you’re done with someone, and then you see yourself in the mirror above the sink wearing the shirt they said made your eyes look so blue, or you deliberately skip over saying the word “orange” because you had this whole conversation when you were high watching the headlights and taillights inch their way out of the college stadium, and it’s all still there, right under the surface of moving on. 

The Earth is built up in layers. The core is hard and solid, but outside of it, something hot and moving breaks through the surface from time to time and creates a whole new layer that cools and hardens, and the next time the magma erupts, it just builds over the top. Sometimes it takes the old earth away with it, but usually it just piles up on top. And the oldest layers get pushed down, down till they melt again. 

Niall’s still waiting for the last few years to be buried under new growth. Sometimes he thinks it’s happened, and then he’ll hear a song on the radio while he’s waiting for his subway car, and he knows there’s ages to go before whatever he was meant to learn gets melted in with the rest of him. Comes back out later in a new form, and that’s how you know it’s really over. 

Niall’s spinning his phone on the tabletop at Macchiavelli’s when he hears Harry bustle in through the front door. The bell tinkles and he hears Harry’s low, soothing voice murmur a swift greeting to the hostess who’s used to seeing them every Friday night. Niall fights off a prickle of annoyance for the way Harry ingratiates himself to everyone he meets, for the way they’ve never made it through the park without Harry running into a friend he hasn’t met yet or a kid he has to stop and make laugh. 

Zayn couldn’t pass up a dog without stopping to pet it, so it’s not like Niall’s not used to a quick picnic turning into a whole afternoon where he comes away smelling of dog or his hands sticky from a thing of bubbles. He’s not even sure why he’s in such a mood except that he heard that Usher song on the radio while he was waiting for his bus, and even tinny and crackly over the ancient bus speakers, he felt Zayn’s stubble against his cheek again, saw the way his whole face crinkled up when he smiled.

Harry rounds the corner pushing his damp curls out of his face. The tops of his shoulders are wet like he walked over from work, which is so like him that Niall’s annoyance translates itself directly into anxiety. “You’re going to catch pneumonia from the rain like that,” he says, and stands up to help Harry out of his wet coat. His mint green scrubs, at least, are mostly dry. 

“I’ve been reading up on the health benefits of goji berries,” Harry says, like they haven’t had a hundred iterations of this exact conversation. “They’re meant to boost your immune system, so I’m going to pick up a carton from Pike Place tomorrow.” 

“You work with doctors,” Niall laments. He tugs his coat off and passes it to Harry, who tucks himself inside of Niall’s warm jacket and lets out a little pleased sigh. He looks tired, but that’s not unusual. His shifts at the Children’s Clinic are twelve hours each and Niall knows he’s never coasted a day in his life. 

Sometimes, when Harry’s not just on the other side of the room or tucked in close at Niall’s side on their way back to Harry’s from the Paramount or Pine Street, Niall lists his attributes to himself. Not like he’s trying to quantify Harry, more like he’s trying to categorize aspects of him the way he’d categorize stars from the Observatory where he’s currently tracking a meteor’s path around the Earth, trying to figure out if it’ll ever come around again like Halley’s Comet.   
He’s a pediatric nurse, he loves kids, he calls his mom and his sister at least once a week, he irons Niall’s shirts for him after Niall’s done it wrong somehow, he cooks as often as his schedule allows. He’s a carer, Harry – that’s what Zayn would say. Niall can hear it in his voice: “Sweet as a lamb, I could eat him myself.” 

Fundamentally not true, Niall thinks. The only person Zayn ever consumed was Niall, like they were some kind of star pair. You think you can combine the two like adding one’s heat to another, but it doesn’t work like that, and all Niall really did was fill Zayn out until he didn’t need Niall anymore. 

Niall’s proud of Zayn in the odd moments when he’s not wondering how he came to need Zayn in return. Or maybe he doesn’t need him, and he never did. Relying on someone and counting on them are two different things, like the way his comet’s projected trajectory changes based on every shift in angle for the next seventeen days while Niall can track it from this little corner of America. Then he passes along his research to the next astronomer, who adds to it and passes it along again. It wasn’t ever really Niall’s to keep. Knowing that the comet is still out among the stars following the path he thought it would, though, is enough. Should be enough. 

He tells himself it’s enough. 

He still misses it. 

Harry smiles. He puts one hand over Niall’s on the table and the other on the back of Niall’s neck, and Niall accepts his soft kiss with something like gratitude. Harry feels like coming home would have if he was still eighteen or nineteen or twenty-one and lost to himself in college, and he never spared a thought for whether anyone would love him the way movies made love out to be. 

He got Zayn, and Zayn didn’t love at all like the movies, and now he has Harry, who loves him so much Niall might wonder if he was living in one except for Zayn. Love like in the movies doesn’t peel your skin away from your bones or make you want to wear every mark of it on your skin or the color of your hair as though it can’t be contained within you. Love like in the movies isn’t a supernova, and it doesn’t end with the hero shrunken down again, like Odysseus returning to some kind of normal life. 

Truth be told, sometimes Niall wonders if he’s the hero of his own life, or if he’s just the side character in everyone else’s like a signpost along the way directing them where to go and how to get there. 

Harry nudges Niall’s foot beneath the table so that they have two solid points of contact, because Harry’s like that. Niall curls his fingers around Harry’s palm and says, “Farmer’s market sounds like fun.” 

Harry looks up from the menu – he’ll get the cheese ravioli, he always does, but he still pretends like he’s going to be adventurous and try something new (that’s what Niall’s for) – with a smile. “Yeah?” he asks. “You want to come with me? We can stop by the bookstore after, I’ll let you buy me a green tea.” 

Niall furrows his brow, his eyes on their hands. Their skin tones are similar, although Harry’s got more of a tan than Niall does, and his hands are chapped and dry from washing them so many times every day. “What was that poem?” Niall asks. “That you read to me the other day.” 

Harry clears his throat and recites, 

> _Think crucial hanging,_  
>  Think crayon orange.   
> There is one low leaning   
> heart-shaped globe left,   
> and dearest, can you   
> tell, I am trying  
> to love you less.

Niall nods, something heavy and solid settling in his gut. He clears his throat. “Did I ever tell you how weird it is that you can remember stuff like that?” 

Harry smiles and runs his hand through his hair again to shake out all the drizzling Seattle rain. “Yeah,” he says. “But I like it.” 

He orders the cheese ravioli, just like Niall predicted, so Niall has the eggplant parmesan. Harry samples his plate and decides he’ll order that next time. Niall reckons he’ll stick with cheese ravioli. They walk to the bus stop slowly, tired, and yet too tired to hurry home to sleep. Harry weaves his fingers through Niall’s and waves at a little girl in her mother’s arms at the bus stop. 

Harry digs his keys out of the bottom of his messenger bag and lets them into his apartment, which is a bit of a mess, as usual. The large map Harry has posted above his little kitchen table is marked with red push pins for all the places Harry’s been, blue for all the places he wants to go. Niall wanders over for a look, more out of habit than anything. The pin in Australia has gone from blue to green, and he feels himself gray out, like a TV channel with a lost signal.   
“Bought the ticket this morning,” Harry says, offering Niall a nervous smile. “It was a good deal.” He touches the push pin almost reverently, his face all hard satisfaction and love. Soft, and love. “For a couple of weeks this June. You want to come with me?” 

Niall tears his eyes away from Harry so that he can look back at the map. “You’ll come back?” 

“‘Course,” Harry says. No question about it. 

Something incendiary hot and bright forces it’s way up through the cracks in Niall’s heart. “Nah,” he says. “I’ve got my corner of the sky to watch. And someone’s gotta water your ficus while you’re away.” 

Harry rests his cheek on Niall’s shoulder for a second. He pulls away to press a kiss to the side of Niall’s head, and then he loops an arm around his waist and gently tugs him toward his bedroom. Harry has the same dove gray curtains over his windows that Zayn did when Niall met him. Had. Has. They’re Harry’s now. Niall lets himself go.  


	24. talk me down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an ace!zayn ziall uni au

Niall leans into Zayn’s side and yawns, loudly, right into his ear. “Could you not?” Zayn asks. “Those are contagious and I have an exam in half an hour.” 

“You’ll be fine,” says Niall. He leans more heavily into Zayn. The cold tip of his pink nose presses against Zayn’s collarbone, and it’s not just from the chill that Zayn shivers. “You’re a genius,” Niall goes on blithely. “And you’re going to make me a rich trophy husband someday.” 

“Not if half the footie team doesn’t first,” Zayn mutters. He’s glad he doesn’t blush the way Niall does. He gets the reaction he wants, though; Niall lifts his head off Zayn’s shoulder and his arm drops from Zayn’s waist. He throws his head back when he laughs. It used to annoy Zayn so much when they were just freshers and he thought everything about Niall was concocted, orchestrated, fake. Now he knows better. Zayn just hadn’t known it was possible to really be so ebullient. Like sunshine. Zayn misses Niall’s warmth and proximity the moment he’s gone. 

“Eh,” Niall says, and gives a shrug. He pays the cashier inside the food truck for their kebabs and they turn away from the silvery food truck. It glints fit to blind anyone looking at it when full summer sunshine makes a rare appearance through the clouds. At the minute, it blends in with the dove grey clouds overhead pretty well. 

Zayn thinks about taking a picture of it, maybe as low as he can get so that the silver trailer looks as though it’s sitting on the horizon, a part of the clouds. Niall would stand by and wait patiently with both their kebabs in his hands, too. Mostly Zayn decides against it because it’s cold, and his mind is supposed to be on PhotoShop right now, and he’ll save it for something to look forward to when he gets out of class. 

Niall keeps close to Zayn’s side on the way to the science building where all the computer labs are ‘cos he’s got this thing about personal space. When it comes to Zayn, he hasn’t got any. “What else have you got planned for today?” Niall asks. 

They stop in the middle of the quad for a tour group to pass by. They all look so wide-eyed and young and intimidated. Zayn tries to square his shoulders and tilt his chin just so. Niall steps on his toes. “Don’t do that,” Niall says sweetly. Zayn narrows his eyes and Niall just smiles as indulgently as if Zayn’s Theo throwing a strop over his bedtime.

“Why not?” Zayn asks. 

“Because I know the real you,” Niall says seriously. “And the real you cries over _Spirited Away_.” 

“It’s the bit on the rail lines that gets me,” Zayn laments, and Niall laughs. Zayn knows his face has gone butterscotch-sweet looking at Niall because he’s seen himself in the pictures Harry takes of them when he’s not looking. And, like. If Niall doesn’t think anything of it, then neither does Zayn. Because it’s like.  

It’s like this, he reckons. He might want Niall’s arm around his waist and his breath on the side of his head, and sometimes he might even think about how nice it’d be for Niall to trace the shape of the tattoo on Zayn’s neck with his tongue, but he doesn’t, like. He doesn’t actually want to shag him, is the thing. Or anyone. 

But Niall does, a lot, all the time, with whatever pleasant and lovely person grabs his attention. Which is fine, Zayn wouldn’t judge, or anything. God knows Zayn’s spent enough timing looking at naked people for art classes and poring over those grotty magazines you can get for cheap from the shops with the curtained-off section with Danny and Ant when he was younger, but that’s where the buck stops, really.

So. It matters to Niall, so Zayn lets him kiss the side of his head and he doesn’t think about turning just enough that Niall would kiss his mouth, and he doesn’t think about Niall smiling at him easily after. It’s just easier that way. Instead he lets Niall kiss the side of his head, and then he darts his hand out and punches Niall in the dick, gently, and Niall jumps back with laughter written all over his face. 

“Go let me take this test, babe,” Zayn says. 

“Come over when you’re done,” Niall just says. Zayn finishes the last of his kebab and drops the stick in the bin outside the science building, and then he marches up the stairs to his death, or at the very least another exam. 

After the test, Zayn goes over to Niall’s flat. It’s a tiny place with a futon in the middle of the living room because it doesn’t have a bedroom, but it’s neat and it’s Niall’s, so Zayn likes it. “We’ll be graduated soon,” Niall offers from his spot flat on the floor next to Zayn. “There’s that, at least.” 

Zayn takes another hit off of Niall’s mostly mint leaf blunt. Their old supplier cut town to get married and open a donut shop, so they’ve been doling out their stash as slowly as possible. That means cutting it with whatever herbs they’re pretty sure won’t kill them. Zayn’s particularly fond of the lavender. “And then we’ll be a music student and an art student with degrees,” Zayn says. “I wonder if Nando’s is hiring.” 

Niall kicks his skinny, hairy leg out and gets Zayn’s elbow with unerring accuracy. Zayn calmly lays his legs over Niall’s to prevent any further attack. “We could move in together,” Niall muses. “You ‘n’ me, I mean. I could take you home to Ireland with me. You could paint Seamus Heaney poems forty feet high.” 

Zayn takes another hit off the blunt. “That actually sounds sick, mate.” 

“See?” Niall asks calmly. “There you go, love, just had to find the silver lining.” 

Zayn clears his throat and props himself up on his elbows to look at Niall, who’s just watching Zayn. His eyes have this way of going so soft when he’s not being hard and reflective and so positive; when he’s letting you see him, and not the version of yourself you best like. Zayn’s heart lodges itself behind his tongue.  
Niall searches Zayn’s face for something. “Could be like an old married couple, you and me. Rowing over tea and the right way to grill a steak.” 

“I’d marry you,” Zayn says. His voice is hardly more than a whisper, but it feels like a declaration in this room above the bloke who plays Carly Rae Jepsen at full blast with an episode of Adventure Time on the telly. It feels like all the stuff it took him so much time and nerve to work up to saying to everyone he loves back home. 

The weirdest bit is that somehow it’s harder to explain “I like blokes but I don’t want to shag them” than it is to say, “I like blokes.” Zayn looks at Niall and waits for him to say something the same way he waited for his superpowers to develop when he was five, six, fourteen, fifteen. Now. It doesn’t really go away, the hoping. 

“Would you kiss me?” Niall asks, flat-out. Zayn nods, and Niall tips his chin up like a challenge or an invitation, maybe a little bit of both. Zayn sits up and wipes his palms off on his jeans, and then he shuffles across the floor so that he’s kneeling beside Niall’s favorite NASA t-shirt. His eyes are closed, so Zayn very carefully cradles his face between his palms and kisses Niall soft, like he’s saying hello. Like he’s his dad come in from work, or something. 

Niall goes slow, because he’s a perceptive guy. He waits till Zayn’s leaned over Niall, his elbows braced on either side of his head, to curl his fingers in the back of Zayn’s dyed hair. With the blond tips done, they’d looked – not related, exactly. Like inversions of each other, somehow. Zayn hadn’t planned on it but he liked it so much he’s let himself go far too long without a haircut. Niall lets him sink in warm and close and deep, and then he slides his palm down Zayn’s chest, back up under the hem of his shirt. 

Which feels. It’s nice. It’s really nice, actually. But it doesn’t always stop there, or whatever, and like. That’s not what Zayn wants with Niall. He pulls away with a bizarre wet pop, like their mouths had formed some kind of hermetic seal, and all Zayn sees when he looks at Niall’s face in regret. It’s that and the sinking feeling deep in his stomach that has him saying, “Fuck, mate, I’m not another notch on your belt.” 

Niall’s rosy cheeks flare up. “What the fuck?” he asks, all disbelieving and flushed and his eyes flashing blue. 

“Nothing,” Zayn says. “This was a mistake.” 

“Kissing me, or wanting me?” Niall asks. Zayn’s already grabbed his coat off the hook beside the door and slipped out. 

He walks home before he remembers that nobody is there, and he doesn’t much want to be alone right now. So instead he goes back down the carpeted stairs and steps onto the street. Maybe he’ll go to the library. Do some homework. Sulk. Have a nice, private strop in a bathroom stall, where he can call Doniya or his mum. 

The street is cold and damp with rain, and soggy leaves are carried over the blacktop by a shivery breeze. Zayn tucks his hands into his pockets and starts the walk to the uni library, where at the very least he’ll be warm. It won’t be the first time he slept there, either, although it’s been a while since Louis kicked him out for some alone time with Eleanor. Zayn never thought he’d miss Louis handing him a crumpled twenty pound note and a plea to get lost. Usually Zayn would just go to Niall’s and order them a couple of cheap pizzas from the place up the road, and Niall wouldn’t seem to mind having him over. Usually. Probably not anymore. 

Zayn has eight missed calls from Niall when he checks the time on his phone, but he can’t bring himself to call back. His own words keep ringing in his ears and he’s never…he never meant to attack Niall, he’d always wanted. He always wanted Niall to feel like Zayn wouldn’t do that to him, because they’ve all got shit and everybody needs someone to love the stuff that makes you want to crawl under the covers and never come out. Zayn picks up on the tenth call just so that he can apologize. 

“Shit,” he starts, and Niall pauses in the middle of taking a deep breath. “I fucked up, mate, I’m sorry.” 

“Oh,” says Niall.

Zayn huddles inside a doorway and toes at a chip in the cement. “I didn’t, like. Got a heart like a steel trap, you do, like.” 

“Oh?” Niall asks. His voice sounds as ragged around the edges as the series of paintings Zayn did that he took a knife to, later, just for the catharsis. Zayn doesn’t want Niall to be another canvas he’ll try to put back together, knowing the whole time it won’t work. “If this is like – if you’re breaking up with me –”

Zayn wraps his coat around himself and sinks down with his back to the door until he’s squatting. “We’re not together,” he says, because it’s true. 

“You love me,” Niall finally says. Zayn closes his eyes. “You’ll always have been in love with me. Whether we kiss or not. And I can be okay with not.” 

“Kissing’s fine,” Zayn mutters. The words on the tip of his tongue are so frank and easy, and so impossible to say. He doesn’t want Niall to take a beat and then ask him, “Really? How does that work? Are you sure you just haven’t tried hard enough yet?” because. Because Zayn’s tried. Like, really hard. 

Niall takes a deep breath. “I think,” he starts. “That if I want to take you home and move in with you and marry you, then I don’t really mind, okay?” 

“Yes, you do,” Zayn mutters miserably. He starts pulling grass up by the fistful for something to do. 

“Zayn,” Niall says. And Zayn knows he’d try. He really, really would. And he’d hold himself so accountable for things not working out. It still sounds like a plea. 

Zayn takes a deep breath. One thing he learned from his mum is, love means putting someone else first. Especially if it’s you that’ll hurt them. So he clears his throat and says, “Never mind. I’m going home. I’ll talk to you soon, Niall.”

And he does just that. 

He’s laying in bed staring at the ceiling at four o’clock in the morning when someone starts banging on his door. Zayn throws his legs over the side of the mattress and goes to let Niall in. “It came out wrong,” says Niall. “It’s not that I won’t mind, I like, like that about you. That you don’t just want to have a shag and then see you in class tomorrow. I’ve had so many of those. I start to miss something I’ve never had, ‘cept with you.” 

Niall pushes his way under Zayn’s arm and draws himself up to his full height, which is exactly Zayn’s. He’s wearing a pair of Zayn’s trackies that fit tight round his thighs and the Ed Sheeran hoodie he’s had since he talked his way backstage to meet him at the first concert Zayn ever went to. 

“You’re mad,” Zayn says. 

“No more than you,” Niall says. 

And, well. 

They fall asleep with their backs pressed together like the soldiers in those war movies Niall loves so much, and Zayn wakes up curled around Niall like he’s afraid of letting him get away. Niall keeps snoring on, quiet, like some kind of metronome, or a ticking clock. Zayn lets him go, instead, and lets himself fall back asleep.


	25. all we ever knew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> canon compliant narry, set in spring 2016. harry and niall don't exactly know what they are to each other.

“I’m in LA now,” Niall tells Harry, twirling the phone cord around his finger. He’s in some hole-in-the-wall podunk diner just this side of Hermosa Beach. The lads are sat around the table with an ice-cold pitcher of margaritas sweating onto the wooden tabletop and in the kitchen, their orders of fajitas and nachos sizzle on the grill. Niall can smell onions and peppers and cheese and, because he’s talking to Harry, a whiff of Harry’s vanilla candles. 

It’s weird and Niall’s never told anyone because he’s never told anyone that Harry kissed him once and sometimes they kiss now but it’s not a regular thing and even if it was, it wouldn’t work, and. Anyway. The point is, when Niall thinks of Harry he smells vanilla and it’s nauseating now, because he thought he’d outgrown that. 

Maybe outgrown isn’t the right word. Niall’s been on the road living out of less opulent hotels and eating local food for the past few weeks, and it’s been amazing. A proper check-in with reality and real people even though he’s been on break, and probably most people can’t just piss off for a month with their mates. 

Niall keeps seeing families on holiday, usually a dad with a snapback pulled down over his sweaty forehead and a mum with a fussy baby in her arms, and Niall can’t quite relate, because his family never really went on holidays like those. It’s different, though, being with his friends than it was with One Direction. 

There’s nobody following them around with an ear piece and a clipboard shouting at them to get them in order and every day isn’t scheduled down to the minute. Mostly they do what they want, and what they wanted was ziplining and fishing on open water on the Gulf of Thailand and getting drunk on the beach, all of which are activities Niall enjoys. 

He thought maybe he could put One Direction on the shelf for a little while, in some ways. It was a dream and then it was real and he lived it and it cost something invaluable of him. Now, maybe, he gets those bits back. The growing up bits, and having a normal that doesn’t cost him everything but all the things he thought he wanted: fame and success and a fair degree of feeling special, but now he’s ready to feel like a regular bloke again.

“I saw,” Harry drawls, and Niall smells another whiff of vanilla in the middle of a crowded Mexican restaurant. “How’s that sunburn?” 

Niall laughs. “Hurts like hell, actually.” 

Harry hums in that way that means _You deserve it_ , and then he asks, “And the observatory? How was that?” 

Niall lets out a sigh and leans against the wall. He shouldn’t have lost his phone. If he hadn’t accidentally set his phone down in the airport toilet and walked off without it, then he could be having this conversation over text, and he wouldn’t have to close his eyes and imagine Harry’s room. Niall only spent the night at Harry’s new place in London once, but he remembers the heavy velvet drapes over the windows and the way pearly gray London sunlight filtered past them when Niall blearily blinked awake in Harry’s plush bed with Harry’s arm draped across his waist. 

Niall shouldn’t be so damn happy to get back, is all. 

He knows the other lads are a little bummed to be getting back to their day-to-day lives, so Niall reckons he should be. Sometimes he thinks he is, when he considers the peanuts he’s gotten from the commercial in-flight service and renting a tuk-tuk while he was in Thailand because that’s what everyone did, and how it was actually possible to travel round in an open-sided vehicle and Phil only commented that it was sick, not that it was a huge security risk. 

And then at night, when everyone else is crashed out around the hotel room on the other beds and the couch and regularly the kitchen table, Niall lies tucked up under his cheap polyester hotel blankets and think about London and playing music again and Harry smiling at him on the golf course and he can’t wait to finally be home.

The observatory was great. Niall’s only problem was that he wished Harry had been there, and that he wished he didn’t wish Harry was there. “Fantastic, mate,” Niall says, dropping his voice. “They’ve got a show on the northern lights, you know, the aurora borealis, and they’ve got a telescope trained on the sun so you can see the solar flares and things. You think it’s just this big gold thing in the sky, but really it’s burning. How sick is that? Like, if you think about it, how we’re just on this rock going round and round a ball of gas that’s on fire.” 

“‘Burn all, burn everything. Fire is bright and fire is clean.’” 

Niall pauses. “That’s nice, you should put that in a song.” 

“It’s from a book. From _Fahrenheit 451_.” 

Niall nods. At the table, Phil flags down a waiter for another pitcher of margaritas. Inside the kitchen, Niall can see the wait staff loading down a tray with his table’s order, and he knows he needs to ring off. It’s not, like. What he and Harry had, being friends the way they were, it wasn’t like they were in love. It was just that they were each other’s closest person within reach and they already loved each other like brothers, like best friends, why not round it all out and add sex to the mix, as well? 

And it shouldn’t feel like this. Niall’s pretty sure. He thinks. 

“Was that the best part?” Harry ventures. 

Niall shakes his head. “No.” 

Harry clears his throat. “Maybe you can tell me about it. When you come back to London, if I’m still here.” 

Niall clutches the phone to his head so hard it hurts. “Should be end of this week. Yeah?” 

Harry sounds undeniably pleased, which is frustrating. All told Harry is much more comfortable with their non-arrangement than Niall ever has been. Harry floats through life like a leaf on the breeze hitting every branch on the way down, and somehow he lands looking even more beautiful than when he started. Niall will never understand it. “Okay.” 

“Alright. I’ll – hopefully I’ll have a new phone by then, I’ll ring you.” 

“Okay,” Harry repeats. 

And Niall, who’s usually so good at self-preservation, says, “Miss you.” 

“Yeah,” Harry agrees, and rings off. 

The last leg of Niall’s lads’ holiday is the flight from LA to Heathrow. Eoghan’s gone back to Ireland and the rest of the lads have spread out back to the places they belong, too, so it’s just Niall. He was shocked the first time he went somewhere by himself after X-Factor and Up all Night, and he was scared. Niall started making his own breakfast when he was nine years old, he’s not the kind of person who balks at doing things on his own, but people are like that. You get used to having a buffer around you all the time, people who stop the hits from coming quite as hard and make every stranger seem just one connection removed from being a friend. 

Niall misses them, he thinks. His friends. The way they soften everything, make everything approachable and friendly. The band did that, too. On his own, things seem harsher and less sure, risky. He feels, uniquely, that he’s getting to grow up again at the age of twenty-two. It’s exciting, and daunting. 

He gives himself a day and a half to get settled into his house. Willie does a good job of keeping everything presentable, but Niall likes the ritual of washing his own clothes and the bedcovers and rearranging his living room because he never knows what in the hell he was thinking last time he put the TV right next to the window. All that stuff is good and it keeps him busy for almost eight hours. Then Niall cracks, and he goes out to the garage and finds his BMW, and he drives to Harry’s. 

It’s stupid, and Niall knows it’s stupid, and he honestly has no intention of parking on the street where he’s sure to get ticketed tomorrow morning at 8am. But then he sees that the lights are on and, like. If Harry’s up. Niall parks the car and texts Harry. Niall’s phone buzzes again in under a minute, not enough time even for Niall to contemplate going round the corner for In-n-Out while he waits to see if Harry’s up for anything. 

 _Door’s open_ , Harry’s sent, so Niall kills the engine and climbs out of the car. He feels strangely large, massive, even, which is strange for a guy who’s always been a little skinny for his age and will probably never outgrow his chicken legs or his bony elbows and wrists. Something about having gotten so far away from the band, at least in his head, and scraping away some of the glamor of having a million-dollar price tag on his head. Somehow all that paring down has made him feel bigger, which is nice. 

Privately Niall wonders that he didn’t just come back to One Direction from behind, that the fact that he’s done everything in response to it makes everything – well. It is what it is. 

“It’ll make sense in time,” that’s what Bobby says. Niall is choosing to trust him.

Harry left the door on the latch, the literal maniac, so Niall nudges the door open and steps inside. “Harry?” Niall calls. His voice might echo under Harry’s vaulted ceilings except for the fact that he’s filled his new place with all sorts of strange and sublime things, like the overstuffed leather couch in the entryway and the mismatched array of bookshelves standing beside it. 

Harry’s house has no internal logic except Harry’s, so actually it makes rather a lot of sense. Probably he just wanted the couch and his reading material to be the first thing he saw, and closest at hand, when he got home. Niall spots a pair of his boots kicked off near the end of the couch and knows it to be true. 

“Here,” Harry answers, so Niall follows the sound of his voice. “Sorry, I was just tidying up –”

Harry stops talking the second he sees Niall, rocking on his heels in the doorway to what looks like a den, or maybe his office. Harry looks a little like one of those old leatherbound books he likes so much, a little oily on the edges from so many readers thumbing through his pages and a little transparent in the middle from so many different interpretations, and he looks like Harry. 

Harry wastes no time on awkward how-do-you-dos; he strides across the living room plush with a thick woven rug laid over the top of soft carpet and cups his hand around the back of Niall’s neck. Niall closes his eyes the moment Harry touches him ‘cos he knows what comes next, and something about the way Harry will be looking at him – like he likes him, like he loves him, like he’d consume Niall if he could – is too much to think about without ever having. 

Harry drags his tongue across Niall’s lower lip, and then he makes a soft, high sound in the back of his throat. He licks around Niall’s mouth like he’s trying to eat something from him, and it’s weird and a little too much and much too good. Niall’s arms hang by his sides while he kisses Harry back until his eyes blink partially open, and all he can see is Harry’s ear and the side of his face, and it’s Harry, so Niall puts his hands on Harry’s hips and squeezes. 

“My room,” Harry murmurs, and starts the slow and awkward and terrifyingly unmissable dance of walking Niall backwards through his house. They only bump into the wall once, in the stairwell, when Harry tries to wrap his leg round Niall’s hip and presumably send them both tumbling to their deaths. 

Niall kicks off his shoes and climbs onto the bed while Harry pauses a moment to light a few candles, which is so Harry it hurts. Then Harry’s crawling up the bed and settling between Niall’s legs, his body feverishly warm even though he says he feels cold all the time. Niall’s fading sunburn only stings a little when Harry presses him down to the mattress, certainly not enough to tell him to stop. It’s good, even, that it hurts. As if to reassure Niall this isn’t all some sort of dream. 

Niall slides his palms down Harry’s bare back just for the way he shivers, his stomach spasming against Niall’s. Harry pushes Niall’s sleeve up and snogs the inside crook of his elbow and then the palm of his hand, and. What some people wouldn’t give for Harry frantic and eager like this, his tongue slipping out in a brief flash of pink to lick Niall’s fate line. How greedy Niall is for wanting so much more. 

“Wait,” says Niall, when Harry’s kissed his way down from Niall’s mouth, over his chest and stomach. Harry pauses at the waistband of Niall’s jeans. Niall’s legs are spread wise to give him better access and it occurs to Niall, not for the first time, that he hadn’t even thought about it. He’s too easy for Harry. “You didn’t ask what my favorite part of the observatory was.” 

Harry rests his cheek on Niall’s gammy knee. “What was your favorite part of the observatory?” Harry asks. He keeps absent-mindedly rubbing Niall’s thigh the way he might pet a cat, ‘cept a cat wouldn’t be so annoyingly hypersensitive to the side of Harry’s thumb or the way it keeps almost brushing against his dick. Niall fights to keep his hips from twitching all over the bed. 

“Tesla coil,” Niall answers. It’d been this great big metal rod that shot off sparks longer than Niall was tell. It charged the whole room with static electricity and made the worst humming sound, stranger and more unsettling even than an arena filled with impatient fans. It raised every hair on the back of Niall’s neck like he was standing at the feet of some strange and awful god, and he’d thought it incredible. “Someday, like, the hope is that people won’t even need power lines for electricity. It’ll all be in the air. How amazing is that?”

Harry bends his head down and the bites the soft, fleshy part at the inside of Niall’s thigh. He bites gently, but it still makes everything inside Niall’s brain stop what it’s doing. “Sounds nice,” Harry says, so Niall doesn’t protest any more while Harry unzips his flies and sucks him down. Harry’s hands refuse to stay still while he sucks Niall off. 

He palms over his groin and his vee lines and the bony curves of his hips, then down his legs and the inside of his thighs to his knees. Objectively, Niall knows, Harry thinks he’s well fit. It doesn’t keep him in bed past dawn, and it doesn’t earn Niall an invitation to stay for a breakfast where Harry will look at him like he will when Niall pushes inside him, and that’s fine. It’s just sex.

It’s fine. Just, it doesn’t stop Niall from doing everything he knows Harry likes. He curls his hands around Harry’s metal bedframe and works his hips and wonders who he’s even trying to prove something to, himself or Harry. Harry smiles like the cat that ate the canary when Niall gets off for the second time and holds him close, kissing him till Niall’s brain kicks back on and he can kiss Harry back. He’s barely even rocking his hips when Harry comes, groaning so loud Niall’s glad they aren’t tucked up in some hotel room in the middle of another endless tour. 

Niall watches the antique clock on Harry’s wall count the minutes while they catch their breath. Then he makes himself sit up in bed before Harry does and run a hand through his hair. Harry’s blunt fingernails have left red marks all down Niall’s back, and it stings separate from his sunburn. 

“Going home?” Harry asks. It feels like a gentle nudge toward the door.  
“Unless there’s something else you want me for,” Niall says. He looks at Harry over his shoulder even though he knows it’ll only hurt later. Harry’s laid out on his back with come and sweat drying on his chest, his hair tangled and his eyes feverishly bright, and it’s ridiculous, but Niall hopes his clothes will smell like vanilla. 

Harry pauses, and then he shakes his head, so Niall slips off the edge of the mattress and goes poking around Harry’s room looking for his clothes. He drags his pants and his jeans over his hips and pulls his socks and shoes on next, but he can’t find the shirt he came in wearing. It was the shirt that he got from the Griffith Observatory, too, and he’d liked the star pattern a lot. He turns back to Harry, who’s climbing out of bed and padding naked into his en suite to run a shower. 

“Do you know where my shirt went?” 

Harry shakes his head. “Want me to help you look for it?” 

Niall says no. He can hear the water warming up in Harry’s bathroom and he doesn’t want to stay for the part where Harry washes himself off and acts like it never happened till it happens again, he just wants to go home to his empty house that doesn’t smell right. 

And it’s. That’s some shit, isn’t it? Niall’s too old now to do this anymore, to sacrifice parts of himself so the rest of him can do alright. He’s halfway down Harry’s walk, his sunburn aching a little under his coarse jean jacket, when he turns on his heel and marches back inside. The sound of water running through the pipes cuts out, and Harry’s just padding out of the bog when Niall arrives upstairs. 

Niall’s gotten as far as “I –” when he notices what Harry’s wearing. “You found my shirt?” 

Harry starts pulling at his bottom lip, his towel-turban drooping a little over his forehead, and Niall realizes what it means. 

“You stole my shirt?” 

Harry shrugs. “‘S nice,” he mumbles, then clears his throat. 

“Why?” Niall asks. It seems the only thought in his brain. 

Harry’s face clouds over. The expression is so unusual it takes Niall a long moment to recognize it. Anger. “‘Cos I’m not just your booty call, am I? ‘Cept I am.” 

Niall blinks, but the world doesn’t snap back into focus. A peculiar buzzing fills his ears like he’s stood in front of the Tesla coil again, feeling all those volts of potential energy pulsing under his skin. Like it’s wireless energy come to life. “That’s not – Harry, you know I – Why’d you think that?” 

Harry starts unmaking the bed. The usual urge rises up in Niall to help, but he thinks maybe Harry’s just doing his version of nervous fidgeting. He lets him be. “‘Cos I know what this is, alright?” 

Niall asks, “What is this?” 

Harry clutches the bundle of his sheets to his chest. “It’s a crutch. You and me, I mean.” 

“That’s all?” Niall asks. He was hoping – well, he’s not exactly sure what he was hoping for. 

Harry drops the sheets and steps right over them. He puts his hand on the side of Niall’s face and Niall leans into his palm, and he sees the moment when it clicks for Harry, ‘cos Harry’s face goes so soft. “‘Cos we don’t know how to be people, you know?” His thumb strokes Niall’s cheek. “Because I know I love you, and I know you love me, and we needed that. I needed you.” 

Niall can’t not look at Harry’s face, as much as he wishes he could look away. “And now you don’t.” 

“Now I don’t want to need you,” says Harry. “I want to want you. We outgrew each other, you know?” he shrugs weakly. “We both did.” 

Niall wants to curl up and die on the spot, but yes, he understands. “A non-break up for our non-relationship.” 

Harry turns back to his bedding and heaps them up in a pile again. “Stay in touch, okay?” he asks Niall. He doesn’t look at him; he’s too busy trying to untuck the sheet mattress. “You know. Just so I know you’re alright.” 

“I’ve got your number,” Niall says. He gives himself one long, last look at Harry, freshly-showered, in Niall’s nerdy space shirt. “Miss you.” 

“Yeah,” Harry just says. He keeps his face turned away, so Niall just – goes. He takes the stairs down and crosses to the front door. He shuts it quietly behind himself and trots down Harry’s walk, and then he takes his car keys out of his pocket. The sun is just beginning to rise over London, where it feels like everything is different, even though nothing’s changed. He goes home.  


	26. misbehavin'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> canon compliant narry. harry's definitely not pining. definitely not.

Glenne hustles through the living room with a cardboard box full of streamers and those terrible horns that unroll a tube of paper when you blow on them and a whole bunch of plastic harmonicas, so Harry cradles his phone to his chest in case she happens to glance down and see his screen. She did say that she was feeling older the other day when she came back from the doctor and he told her to stop eating so much kale or she’d never poop again, but Harry’s not taking his chances. And he’s not laying off the kale, either, thank you very much.

_When are you coming over?_

He watches the blue bubble rise up the screen until the word “Delivered” flashes under it. Niall has his read receipts turned off, the sneaky bastard, so Harry can’t see whether he’s read the message or not. Jeff’s dog Milton whines to be let outside but Harry keeps staring at his screen like he can will Niall to check his damn messages. Not that Harry’s desperate to see him or anything but he can’t last much longer on phone sex and erotic letters. Especially because he writes most of them himself.

_I just got back into th country stop hounding me ya wanker_

Harry huffs and taps at his phone so hard he can his fingers make soft little noises against the screen. He really likes that noise. He taps harder.

“Jesus, Styles, stop trying to break it, huh?” Jeff asks. He grabs a banana and an apple from the fruit bowl on the bar and trots over to the back door to let Milton out. “What are you even doing?”

Harry doesn’t even try to catch the banana that Jeff casually throws at his face. He just tilts over until he’s spread across the couch cushions and the banana goes sailing over the top of the couch. It hits the staircase behind the couch with a resounding splat. Harry sighs and slides off the couch to fetch a rag and a spray bottle of household cleaner from under the sink.

“That’s the third time you’ve sighed in the past five minutes,” Jeff observes. He takes another loud, crunchy bite out of his apple. Looking back, Harry’s grateful Jeff didn’t decide to pelt Harry with it instead of the banana. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” Harry says. That’s the exact problem. There’s nothing going on. He thought he had everything planned out so well, too. Wait to kiss Niall until he flew out of LA to London to Australia to start his extended lads’ holiday so he had time to process, then pick up where they left off when he got back. Harry thought all that time and distance would be just what it took to keep from scaring Niall off, but now it seems like he doesn’t want to bother with Harry anymore.

Oh, God. He found someone else. Harry sprays the floor and the wall extra angrily and starts wiping at all the squished banana all over everything, channeling Mr. Miyagi from the Karate Kid movie. Grimmy thinks Harry’s uncultured swine so they’ve been revisiting the cinematic classics. Harry’s personal favorite has been Little Shop of Horrors.

That asshole. Well, Harry’s found other people to shag, too. He can find another.

He takes his phone out of his pocket, intending to text Niall so, and finds another text from him. _Let me get a nap in and take a shower , k party still at urs ?_

Harry glares daggers at his phone. _Yes,_ he sends back _. It’s by RSVP._

The three gray dots pop up meaning that Niall’s typing, and Harry stares at them with his heart in his throat. Maybe he’s going to ask to bring a guest. Harry wouldn’t say no, because that’s rude, but he would have to commit to getting tremendously drunk and pulling tonight, which all feels like quite a lot of effort when he could have Niall laughing in his bed for the price of the massage bar he got from Lush. It’s for Niall to use on him, obviously. _Cool see ya_

“I hate him,” Harry tells Jeff.

Jeff doesn’t look up from his phone. “I’m sure he loves you,” he says. “Everybody loves you.”

Yeah, just not the one person Harry actually _wants_ to love him.

Harry drives himself to his big, echoing house a neighborhood over from Jeff’s to get ready for the party. He digs around in his closet until he finds the sheerest, tightest shirt in his collection, and then he leaves it unbuttoned to his navel. He ties a cheeky scarf around his neck so that Jeff will stop saying he wears the same outfit over and over again in different variations, which is true, but it looks so good on. He sprays cologne on the insides of his wrists and the small of his back, and then he starts the most important part of his get-ready procedure: meditation.

He used to visualize achieving his goals a lot, but that gets pretty stale when you’ve…you know, already achieved most of the goals you set yourself, so instead he concentrates on finding the tiny little pieces of himself that really believe Niall will show up. That he’ll still like him. That don’t think that Harry’s a little bit of a vapid Californian, because maybe he is, but he’s not just that. Used to be, Niall knew that even when Harry didn’t. He hopes he hasn’t forgotten.

Harry finishes getting ready by sticking a pair of glasses on top of his head to hold his hair back, and by then the caterers have arrived, so trots downstairs to let them in to set up.

Normally when an invitation says that a party starts at seven, nobody shows up till nine. By eleven, Harry’s party is thriving like a lovely bouquet of drunken celebrities taking pictures of themselves in the photobooth and absolutely embarrassing themselves on the karaoke machine he rented from the party store up the street. He loves them all so much.

And Niall still hasn’t shown up. Harry didn’t really plan to get sloshed tonight; he wanted to be fully present when he finally saw Niall again after all these months and especially, particularly, the way his mouth moved against Harry’s and how his hands felt sliding into the open sides of Harry’s shirt. Finally, Harry gets fed up trying to play it cool and wait so he slinks off to the kitchen to ring Niall.

The whole of the upstairs is roped off so that he doesn’t have to have every single bedroom laundered and stain-removed, or he’d take the phone call up there. Outside, people hoot and shriek and there’s a tremendous crash, a sound like a tidal wave washing over the window. Harry moves the blinds aside to look out onto his backyard. The grill is sopping wet and the Rock is laughing even as he mops his face clean of pool water. Harry doesn’t want to know how they managed to make a wave that big. He hopes the steaks aren’t ruined.

The living room is jam-packed with swaying bodies. The lights are turned down low and his DJ is playing a slow, sultry remix, and if Niall were here, Harry could be grinding on him with bad coordination. If he wanted to. If he wanted to be here.

“Hi,” Harry says, when Niall answers the phone.

“Hey, Haz, don’t you have a party to host?” Niall asks. He sounds perfectly pleasant and sober and not at all like he would rather be here than anywhere else. Harry swallows hard.

“I am,” Harry just says.

There’s some rustling on Niall’s end, the faint whirring as maybe he turns a fan on or rolls his window down. Could be anything, really. Harry’s not there to know. “Okay. I’ll be there soon, I just had to make a stop first.”

“Will you pick me up a burger?” Harry asks suddenly. “I mean, since you’re not, like. I’m really hungry.”

“In-n-Out?” Niall asks. “Your regular?”

“No onions, no cheese, extra ketchup,” Harry says.

Niall’s voice comes back riding on a laugh. It sounds softer than Harry expects. “I know what your regular is, idiot.”

“You don’t have to stop,” Harry says. “You can always catch me up another time. Good night.”

Harry’s not even sure why he hung up so fast except that Niall doesn’t get to know that kind of dumb, personal stuff about him if he doesn’t actually care. Harry has enough people in his life who know everything about him and care very little, or not at all. Except for what they can get out of him. He’s just sick of it, is all.

Harry closes his eyes and takes a deep, calming breath. At least he’s not hungry anymore. He clears his throat and runs a hand through his hair, and then he pours out another strawberry vodka and punch into his cup. He threads his way through the undulating bodies, trying his best to fall into rhythm with everyone else. Zach welcomes him in with open arms and Harry smiles, calls, “JD!”

“My little Pop-Tart,” Zach says. He wraps his arms around Harry’s shoulders and puts his face in Harry’s hair. “I love you!”

“You’re the only one I love,” Harry says, and Zach laughs.

Harry bounces from party guest to party guest, sparing everyone a little hip wiggle and a flirtatious look. He has a reputation to maintain, after all, and he had a plan. Get wasted, find someone else, start moving on. Harry slides between a couple not dancing close enough together and they both close in on him.

The bloke puts his hands on Harry’s soft hips and the girl threads her hands together behind his neck and Harry knows he’s already landed them hook, line, and sinker. It’s sad that he can have whoever he wants except the one he actually wants. He shouldn’t be ungrateful. He’s not. Just, he bought that massage bar, and Niall’s favorite flavor of tea, because he was hoping he’d stay with him.

The girl dances close enough to Harry that his thigh keeps pushing the hem of her skirt higher and higher. “Have you got a room?” she asks. The bloke folds his hands together over Harry’s stomach and starts licking the shell of his ear and chewing on his earlobe, which is one of his favorite things. He nods in response and she slips her hand into his to lead him upstairs like she knows her way around.

They’ve almost pushed their way out of the crowd when the doorbell goes. Harry watches blankly as Donald pulls open the door, and then it’s Niall stood in the doorway with a crumpled paper bag clenched in his hand and his hair cut short, as short as Harry’s ever seen it, and so dark.

“Surprise!” everybody cries, mostly at the same time. Those who aren’t too smashed or already asleep all over Harry’s expensive antique furniture, anyway.

As if by magnetism, Niall’s eyes find Harry’s in the dark. Suddenly the two pairs of hands all over him feel not so good. They feel pretty bad, actually.

“Thanks,” says Niall.

***

“Before you say anything,” Harry says, closing the first floor bathroom door behind him. “You were really late and you said you’d come but then you didn’t, and I got a massage bar and there was this whole thing with a banana, and I.” Harry can’t seem to stop himself from peeping at Niall’s stony expression. “I didn’t think you were coming.”

“You threw me a surprise welcome home party?” Niall asks, as if to check. Harry just nods. Of course he did. He’d throw Niall a “thanks for being Niall” party if he didn’t think Niall would get sick of it being a daily occurrence. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because then it wouldn’t have been a surprise. Obviously.”

Niall says, soft, “Harry.”

“What, okay? Look, if you really want to know, I thought it’d be nice if, like, you came back and I’d done this nice thing for you, and you’d realize –” Harry’s voice starts going all wobbly, so he stops talking, starts again. “Clearly it doesn’t matter. Thanks for the food. I hope you enjoy the party.”

Niall starts chewing himself to bits, which Harry hates. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I was late?”

“No,” Harry sighs. “I don’t think you want much to do with me, really.”

“I didn’t want to come over jetlagged to pieces with my hair all a mess,” Niall says. “And nowhere was open, so I had to call Tom special. You wouldn’t want your friends to think I was a slob, would you?”

Harry tentatively puts his burger back down on the edge of the sink. “You look good,” he says grudgingly. It’s very frustrating to be so mad about someone so good-looking, objectively speaking. Harry never stops seeing new angles of Niall in fan pics or pap shots. He comes away from the checkout line at Whole Foods thinking, “I’d love to lick his armpit,” or “I want to suck a bruise onto the side of his knee.” It’s very tiring. “You look older.”

“So do you,” Niall says. The way he says it, it sounds like a compliment. He puts his hand on Harry’s forearm and, when Harry doesn’t move away, drags his hand up till its curved around the back of Harry’s neck.

Harry tells himself that he’ll wait for Niall to kiss him first for approximately two seconds and then the anticipation is too much and he rushes in to get his mouth on Niall’s. He has stubble the same dark color as his hair and it scratches Harry’s chin and lip when he mouths across Niall’s bottom lip and it’s so dizzyingly good that he has to clutch Niall’s hips for support.

They kiss until both of them are actually panting but Harry doesn’t let Niall move away, just cradles his head between his palms and rubs his cheek against Niall’s like his facial hair is some kind of organic pumice stone. God, what that would feel like between Harry’s legs. He experimentally presses down on Niall’s shoulder but he doesn’t fold easily, so Harry sets about getting his hand down the back of Niall’s pants, instead. His skin is so smooth and firm and soft, and he smells like himself.

“If I hadn’t shown up, would you have gotten off with that couple?” Niall asks. Harry turns Niall’s hand over and snogs the palm of his hand.

“Yeah,” Harry just says.

“I don’t – like that,” Niall says, losing his breath a little when Harry sucks his finger into his mouth. “People using you, I mean.”

“Pretty sure I would’ve been using them,” Harry admits, then gently bites Niall’s knuckles. He went to all the trouble of slicking Niall’s hand up for him, the least he can do is stick his hand down Harry’s pants. Harry’s teeth leave an impression on Niall’s skin and he can almost feel his pupils expand the longer he looks at the marks. “Can you take your clothes off, please?”

Niall repeats faintly, “Please.”

Harry doesn’t say anything else. He used his manners. He asked for what he wanted. This is simple stuff, really. Except, wait, “Can I eat you out?”

Niall actually flushes scarlet from the tips of his fingers to his dark hairline. “I don’t know – I haven’t showered since this morning.”

“Niall,” says Harry. “We’re in a bathroom.”

Luckily, it’s not hard for Harry to convince Niall to use the massage bar on him once they’re in the tub. The Jacuzzi in Harry’s en suite is larger than the tub here on the main floor, but he absolutely could not wait to drag Niall through the crowd of people or share him with anyone else, so they’re making do. “Mm,” Harry says, humming with his chest pressed to the edge of the tub so that the whole thing reverberates. “It’s gooood.”

“Stop that,” Niall laughs, so Harry just does it again. “Such a child,” Niall says fondly. He carefully rubs away the knots of tension in Harry’s shoulders. Harry rests his cheek on the edge of the tub to watch him work. His skin is flushed and rosy from the hot water and it contrasts so nicely with his dark hair and the blue of his eyes.

“Hey,” says Harry.

Niall stops massaging him. He raises his eyebrows curiously.

“I had a dream where your knees exploded or whatever so I donated mine. In case you were wondering that’s, like, how much I like you. I gave up my knees for you.”

Niall grimaces. His face twists into a smile. “No thanks,” he says. “I’ll take my dodgy feet over yours any day.”

So Harry leans over and kisses him.

They sloppily put enough clothing back on to finally quit the bathroom and sneak upstairs to Harry’s room, where Niall tackles Harry onto the bed and peels his clothes off. “I can do that myself, you know,” Harry says, watching Niall very carefully unzip his flies and drag his jeans down his hips.

Niall just hums. He peels Harry’s jeans off and pulls Harry’s shirt off over his own head – neither of them could find the shirt he’d arrived in, which is a little weird – and traces the edge of Harry’s panther tattoo with his thumbnail. “This is my favorite,” Niall says.

“Why?”

“‘Cos it’s the stupidest,” Niall says easily. He kisses the panther on its nose.

“Get your kit off so I can kiss your ass,” Harry just says.

Niall folds an arm under his head and pokes at Harry’s iPod speaker with his other hand while Harry gets his situated just the way he wants on the pillows. He curls his fingers around Niall’s knobbly ankles and spreads his legs a little bit further apart, and then he catches sight of something. Dirt? No, hardly. It’s…

“Niall,” Harry says solemnly.

“How come all you’ve got on your speaker is Ed Sheeran and Kylie Minogue? Is this your normal shagging soundtrack? You _know_ Ed.”

“I don’t mean to alarm you,” says Harry, “but you’ve got a tattoo on your ankle, mate.”

Niall peers over his shoulder. “I know,” says Niall. “I know Ed, too, you see. Could be Plus or Multiply, depending on how you look at it.”

Harry smiles over the sound of his heart aching like a rung bell in his chest. “Niall.”

Niall wriggles his foot out of Harry’s grasp and prods his toes into Harry’s chest. “Are you going to get on with it or can we fuck?”

So Harry lets Niall’s legs down to the mattress and drags his teeth over the dimples in Niall’s back. He arches off the bed, hissing through his teeth, and then Harry licks his way down. Niall goes tense for a long moment and then Harry slicks his finger up with spit and works it in alongside, and then he’s curling his hands in the sheets and pressing back into Harry’s face.

He feels a little weird and maybe a little dirty in the best way for liking this so much, but being somewhere nowhere else has been before is, like. It’s _Harry’s_. Forever.

“I think I’m taking your ass virginity,” Harry doesn’t mean to say aloud. Then, thinking better of it, “Although virginity is just a social construct.”

“Please,” Niall just says, rolling over, so Harry slips him a couple of fingers and sucks him down. “Not like that,” Niall says, his hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Yeah?”

“You want me to?” Harry asks.

“Yeah, yeah, if you want,” Niall answers, so Harry fumbles through his bedside drawer for a condom and lube. “I’ll do you after if you want.”

Harry doesn’t even pretend to think about it. “I bought the tea you like,” he says, and hopes Niall understands. “Just in case.”

“My case is in the car,” Niall answers. “Just in case, too.”

Harry doesn’t think Niall will want to kiss him until he brushes his teeth, but he takes Harry by surprise and lets him push in on his back just so that he can kiss him. Harry keeps it slow, slow, even though he thinks he might literally die if he doesn’t move a little faster. It’s an exciting challenge. Harry stays slow, slow, so that it might last forever. Feels like it could, with Niall’s gammy knee tucked up around his hip and the other tangled with Harry’s.

“I think,” Niall says, when they’re both spent and somewhat cleaned up by Harry’s silky boxers, their heads tucked together on the same pillow beneath the sheets, “you were actually a pretty bad host to your guests tonight, Styles.”

Harry licks his armpit.


	27. ground control to major tom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> narry space au; niall's an astronaut, and harry's home base, in more ways than one.

Harry swipes his name badge and waits a short two seconds – two seconds too long in case something goes wrong and he needs to get into Mission Control fast, so he’ll have to have a word with the tech guys – and the door light flashes green. He steps through the hatch onto Mission Control. The usual crew are sat behind their monitors in an array of work stations facing the massive video screen that’s broadcasting Earth’s latest view of itself.

Back in 1972, the crew of the Apollo 17 had turned their cameras back on Earth and photographed what they later called the “Blue Marble.” It doesn’t look as much like a marble these days, and far less blue. Most of the planet is a sickly shade of green-brown, and the quakes that tore the west coast off of America show up on the HQ image like scars, like barren valleys.

“Beauty, isn’t she?” the astronaut asks. His voice is relayed through his comms system on the space ship, through satellites strung up around Earth simultaneously broadcasting cat box commercials and tonight’s episode of M.A.R.V.E.L.: Heroes of Shield. Houston’s satellites pick up the scrambled bits of data from half a dozen satellites and puts the sound back together very nearly the way it ought to be. It’s not quite perfect. That’s not precisely what Niall sounds like.

“It’s not what she’s supposed to look like, Captain,” Harry says, just so hear the indignant sound Niall makes.

Niall floats into view in his heavy space suit, the one with oxygen piped into it and his head ensconced in a giant fish bowl. His head blocks out their view of Earth, and his eyes are shining inside his helmet. “There’s no ‘supposed,’” Niall says, sounding warm and friendly. “There’s just doing and making, and done and made.”

“Tell that to me next time you fuck up a perfectly good homemade bread recipe,” Harry says, forgetting himself for a moment. They’d gone home together one Friday night after work before Niall launched and gone to the store together. Harry was always on the lookout for things for them to do, not because hanging out and doing nothing wasn’t fun, but because they only ever had so much time. He had to cram a whole life’s full of love into the few weeks between finding Niall and falling for him and losing him to everything he’d spent his whole life working for.

Some people never find someone they love this much. Harry swallows, trying to make this thought comforting. Really, he’s been lucky.

“Beauty, isn’t he?” Niall asks, staring into the camera like he can see them. See Harry. The room titters.

Harry clears his throat. “Shut up and get back to work.”

“Aye, Major.”

Niall gives his team’s report on the day’s findings, Harry relays the new data that researchers at NASA headquarters want them to procure, and the day goes by. It’s not a hard job, really. It’s a bit like Harry’s old gig with the Marines, really, the way he’s really just here to make sure Niall thinks through everything he’s going to do.

“Reckon that’s why they partnered us up,” Niall once said, stretched out long and sleepy on the other side of the couch. Harry stroked his cat’s, Olivia’s, back, and waited for him to explain. “‘Cos, you know, you obsess over everything, and I just want to get out there and do it.” He took a deep breath, his narrow chest expanding under the Astros shirt he borrowed from Harry.

“You think everything through,” Harry’d said. And true, it took him two weeks longer than he expected in training to get Niall to invite him out for drinks after work. It was strictly against protocol, still is, but it’s not like there’s much either of them can do about it from half a million miles apart.

Niall rolled his head in his hand and fixed Harry with the same blue stare he’d leveled at him the first time they met, his dyed blond hair ruffled around his head, looking younger than his twenty-something years. That look was Harry’s first inkling that maybe he’d met his match. “Didn’t really think this through,” Niall said, nodding at Harry himself.

“That’s ‘cos there’s nothing to think through,” Harry said, stubbornly smoothing his hand down Olivia’s back again and again until she was purring in his lap. He got so worked up that his leather couch was sticking to the backs of his arms and his bare legs, and he couldn’t hear Rachael Ray on the TV over the rush of blood and fear in his ears.

Niall scratched at his collar, where Harry had already put an angry-looking lovebite. Niall’s collar droops a little now and it’s like he can hear the lovebite saying, _Ha ha look at me, look how very_ here _I am, I’m never going away_.

“You’re right,” said Niall. “There isn’t.”

Harry cleared his throat and looked away. Of course it would, and so would Niall, and there’s nothing to think through.

Niall finally leaned out of his seat and caught Harry’s wrist in his firm, dry grip. Olivia took the opportunity to jump for freedom and padded into her favorite spot over the heating vent in the kitchen. Niall slid into Harry’s lap, instead. He tangled their fingers together and waited till Harry looked up at him before he started dragging the tender inside of Harry’s arm across his lips.

“Simple, you and me,” Niall murmured. He sucked a neat little bruise to the inside of Harry’s arm, his tongue lathing over the skin like he liked the way it tasted. “Yeah?”

Yes, Harry thought. He wanted so to believe it. Yes, so simple, so easy. His bleeding romantic’s heart warmed at the very thought and he couldn’t help but think of his mother in her house back home in England, six hours further along in her day, watching him grow up. She’d want this for him. She wanted this for him. He wanted it for himself. Out loud, he said, “No.”

Niall frowned. “Why not?”

“Because we don’t have a future,” Harry said. Sometimes Niall had a way of looking at him that made him feel a little insane with how confused it was. Was Niall living in another reality, or was Harry really making a bigger deal about this whole “going on an exploratory mission to the far reaches of space and never coming back” thing than he thought?

Niall’s eyes darkened, and he looked properly upset with Harry for a harrowing few seconds before he carefully pinned Harry’s wrists to the couch and slid his mouth across Harry’s. “That’s bullshit, okay?” Niall mumbled into Harry’s mouth. Harry made a doubtful sound and Niall sat back on Harry’s legs to look him in the eye. “I’m serious, okay? Where I’m going, what we’re doing, that’s the future, okay? Our only hope for a future.”

Harry wriggled his wrist out of Niall’s grasp and slid his fingertips from the unwrinkled corner of his eye down to the edge of his downturned mouth. “I’ll never touch you again,” he said. Never fuck him or kiss him or give him a hug, rub his shoulder when he got sick or pull Niall’s bad knee into his lap and carefully massage the pain away till Niall stopped biting his lip till it bled to keep from screaming. “I’m going to watch you grow old from a million miles apart.”

They hadn’t finished the conversation that night. Niall had just gotten them both off grinding against Harry in his lap and then fucked him later, so close and intimate it felt like more like making love.

“Major, there’s a blip on the radar,” Niall’s voice filters through the comms system on Mission Control. Harry’s head snaps up. He presses his finger to the volume button on his headset. The microphones pinned to each crew member’s collar are so sensitive that if Harry turns the volume all the way up and concentrates very hard, he can hear Niall breathing. “Go ahead, Engineering.”

Louis’s voice bleeds through the microphones in a rush of hard Northern vowels. Harry’s been stateside for so long he sometimes forgets what a proper UK accent ought to sound like. “We think it might be a meteor, probably ricochet from a larger collision.”

“Unpredictable,” someone on Harry’s side of the mic murmurs, maybe to soothe him. It doesn’t feel very soothing.

“Likelihood of collision?” Harry asks.

There’s some quiet murmuring on the space side of the comms, Niall’s familiar voice and Louis’s sharp exclamations and the rest of the crew blurring into a mind-melding mess. They had months and months of training for this. Relationship counseling, Niall said they called it, team-building exercises meant to give the crew members of the spaceship a certain quality of communication. It’s not for Harry to understand. He closes his eyes and breathes like he’s doing yoga.

“Major,” Niall finally says.

“Go ahead,” Harry hears himself say. He blinks and he’s still stood here in Mission Control with two dozen sets of eyes on him and his would-be space boyfriend thousands and thousands and thousands of miles away, negotiating every possible incalculable thing that could go wrong.

Niall steadies himself with a deep breath before he talks. “It should be a simple matter of adjusting course. We’re going to change the ship’s trajectory by two degrees for two minutes. Standby.”

“On standby.”

Two minutes is such a short period of time. He knows this. “You didn’t already come,” Niall had asked, once, the condom still inside the silver packet in his hand. “C’mon.”

“Christ, no, give me some credit,” Harry had said. He felt like he could, though he didn’t tell Niall that. Not till he was sure Niall could too, and then if they timed it right, it’d be like taking off in their own rocket together.

Niall rolled the condom on and poised himself over Harry. The atomic clock on his wall counted away the seconds as everything went slow, careful. Five seconds and Harry nodded, giving permission, and Niall started the slow press in. Eight seconds, nine, fifteen, adjusting to him. He smelled so good all the time but especially up close with candlelight flickering off his pale skin. The patch of hair in the middle of his chest smelled like Harry’s shampoo because he’d carefully rubbed it in, partly as a joke, partly not as a joke at all. Then Harry hadn’t been able to keep track of the seconds at all, fast as they slipped away from him.

“Trajectory change complete, revision in pro- what’s that?” Niall’s voice goes from carefully controlled to worried in a flat second, and Harry’s stomach drops.

“Report, Captain.”

“I thought I saw – oh my God.” Niall breathes fast for three, four, seconds. Then, “It wasn’t a blip on the radar, Harry, they’re solar flares. They’re messing with the equipment. Our nav-”

“Stay calm,” Harry orders.

Louis asks dryly, “Who’s not calm?”

“Someone get to a porthole and reboot the nav system. Revert to radar tech. I’m going to take a walk and report on potential collision courses.”

Harry chews over his bottom lip. He listens to Niall grunt with every push he uses to propel him through the ship. There’s a time for him to take over and start giving orders, but it’s not now. Not yet. 

Niall dresses quickly in his heavy space suit, and the bulkhead is only just whistling open when Niall makes a surprised sound and something shrieks down the comms like hot metal screaming through the atmosphere, or an asteroid colliding with the frame of the ship. Mission Control’s comm link goes eerily silent for the first time in six months. 

Protocol is for a sixty second grace period before Harry hits the red button and evacuates the ship of its cargo: ten thousand civilians who volunteered to colonize a new planet. That’s why Harry’s here: to doom all of those people to drifting through space in sleep pods until they get sucked down by some planet’s or star’s gravity. Nobody on board can hit that red button themselves, not even the captain. Dooming the ship itself is just an unpleasant side effect. 

They’d talked about it once, almost in passing. “If it comes to that,” Niall had said, dragging his fingers across Harry’s chest like he was playing connect the dots with his four nipples, “don’t hesitate, okay? Life’s just doing and making. Maybe it’s meant to end that way for me. Begin that way for them. You never know, right? Life wants to be. It’s the one thing I’m sure of.” 

A chance in hell is better than no chance at all. Theoretically.

Harry bows his head and licks his lips, and he starts counting the seconds. 


	28. call me, maybe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> part of a narry manchester uni au i never got around to finishing with past gryles and lirry as roommates.

“Good show tonight,” Niall says. He doesn’t sit back down. “I’ll see you lads around.” He shakes Liam’s hand firmly and then he leans down to kiss Harry’s cheek, so quickly that Harry only barely feels the stubble that he didn’t know Niall had, and then he’s leaving. 

It takes Harry a good thirty seconds of staring at Niall’s back, agog, before he figures out what he should do. “I’ve got to go after him,” he informs Liam. “I’m going,” he adds, and slides out of his chair. He comes to his drunken, unsteady feet like he’s just made a gymnast’s landing. 

Harry bursts out the doors of the Student Union building and the chilly air outside hits him like a brick wall. He lets out a tiny little wounded sound and thinks about going back inside very quickly before he flash-freezes to death, and then he looks around for Niall. He’s up the street, at the corner already, and Harry hurries after him. He’s not sure what to say when he approaches, but he’s saved thinking of something when he slips just as he gets close and grabs Niall’s arm so that he doesn’t crash into the sidewalk. “Whoops!” 

Niall steadies him, his eyebrows up. He looks a bit skeptical. Harry doesn’t know why his heart sinks so fast. “What are you doing out without a coat? You’ll freeze.” 

“You left, and you didn’t get my number,” Harry says. 

“Maybe I don’t want your number.” 

Harry pinches his bottom lip. “I thought you might’ve just forgot.” 

“Maybe I’ve already got your number,” Niall adds, his eyes flicking over Harry from the tips of his battered boots to the top of his frizzing curls. “I don’t like playing games.” 

Harry tries, “Really? Not even badminton, maybe some Guitar Hero, a bit of footie on the weekends? None?” 

Despite himself, Niall smiles. “Harry…” 

“Can I come back to yours?” Harry asks. “Not, like. Unless you want to. Just.” 

“Jesus Christ,” Niall says, casting his eyes up. The colder he is, the more cherry red his cheeks get. Harry really wants to touch him. “Yeah, alright. But we’ve got to hurry, I don’t want your death on my conscience.” 

Harry tucks himself into Niall’s side on the walk back. He wants to ask why they don’t catch the bus, and then he realizes that the bus only runs on campus. So he just sticks by Niall for the fast walk to a house just off campus, on Haydn Ave. “N-Nice place,” Harry comments, shivering on the doorstep as Niall flips through the keys on his key ring for the right one. 

“Thanks,” Niall says, finding the right key and sliding it home. “It’s not much, and I’ve got about a hundred flatmates to afford it, but I’ve a bed. And hopefully you won’t have to meet any of them.” 

Harry wipes at his runny nose. “Are they not nice?” 

“No, they’re too nice, and you’re too much of a lightweight for them,” Niall says dryly. He lets Harry in past the bright red door, and it’s just a normal house. Living room with a couch, kitchen with a couple of plates left on the counter. “This way’s my room, c’mon,” he says, urging Harry down a hall to the left.

Niall’s room is neat as a pin, even the edges of his blankets tucked under the mattress. His room isn’t any bigger than Harry’s in Whitworth Park, but it smells like him, and he has a heap of textbooks on top of his dresser that Harry wanders over to investigate. “ _The Practical Geologist, Earth Science, Hydrof – Hydrofracking_? Is that how you say that?” Niall just nods, hanging his coat up in his wardrobe and unwinding his scarf from his neck. “I didn’t know you were a geology major.” 

“What did you figure me for?” Niall asks, sitting down on the bed to untie his shoelaces. “Art, or something?” 

“No, I don’t know. English, maybe, or music. Something like that.” 

“I almost majored in Spanish,” Niall admits. “Figured geology had more jobs. Plus you get to travel.” 

Harry sits down beside him on the bed, fingering the threaded lines of his duvet. It’s stark white, brilliantly clean. Harry’s always wanted white blankets. “Where d’you want to travel to?” 

Niall looks up at him to answer, and then they’re kissing. Harry’s not quite sure how it happened, but suddenly his frigid hands are on Niall’s warm throat and Niall’s lips are parting under his mouth, and he tastes like Fireball whiskey and breath mints. It’s so easy just to tip over so that they’re laying side by side on Niall’s narrow bed. Harry throws one leg over his hip and scoots closer, sliding his hands up the back of Niall’s shirt so that he shivers. Niall’s hand runs up his thigh, holding him close. 

Harry pulls back to see what Niall thinks of their kiss, because it has to be top five for Harry, ever. Niall’s eyes are closed. Harry thumbs worriedly at his cheek, and still without blinking, Niall says, “Well, I’ve been to New York, but America. South America, for sure, and Africa.” 

“What?” 

“Where I want to travel to,” Niall answers, like it’s obvious. “You asked.” 

Harry touches the dimple in Niall’s chin. “Better question. Can we kiss again?” 

They shuffle around first so that their legs aren’t hanging off the side of the bed, and once Harry’s head hits Niall’s pillow, he’s so sleepy. “Would be quite nice,” he murmurs into Niall’s mouth. “Fall asleep kissing you.” 

“I have terrible morning breath,” Niall grimaces, tucking the blankets tighter around them.

Harry just spreads his fingers over Niall’s red Henley, nudging his face under Niall’s so that he can warm the tip of his nose. 

Niall kisses the corner of his mouth. “G’night.” 

***

“Nice of you to show up,” Fifi says when Harry stumbles into the radio station a few days later. He’s been playing catch-up with his homework ever since he let Liam talk him into leaving their flat for open mic night, and he’s got a major exam in Criminal Law coming up, not to mention that it’s time to submit applications for internships next term and Harry doesn’t even know which kind of law he prefers. He’d apply to all of them if they didn’t each require a different cover letter and if his advisor didn’t recommend tailoring his CV to suit each firm he applies to. 

“Sorry,” he says anyway. “Is there any coffee?” 

“If you make it, there is,” Fifi says. She takes pity on him and ruffles his hair, and Harry dumps his bag and coat at his regular desk at the bullpen before he shuffles off to make coffee. 

“Oy,” someone says, “what are you doing? That’s my desk.” 

Harry blinks. He looks around, and there’s a bloke with dark shaggy hair looking peeved at him. Harry blinks again, confused, and then he looks down at his desk. Someone else’s shit is all over it, two picture frames and a takeout box and text-filled pages. “Sorry, mate,” Harry says. “This is my desk, you must be confused.” 

“No, it’s mine,” he insists. “I was hired a week ago, I’ve been sat there every day since. Who are you?” 

“A week?” Harry repeats numbly. Has it really been that long since he’s been to work? “Where’s Grimmy?” 

The new guy raises his eyebrow. “You mean Nick? He’s upstairs, they’re doing a segment right now – hey!” he says, when Harry starts walking away. “They’re doing a segment!” 

So Harry opens the door quietly, slinking into Grimmy’s little recording booth where he’s interviewing a school president candidate on her position. Grimmy shoots him a sideways look but doesn’t protest, not even when Harry sits down in the chair beside him. Harry smiles at the candidate, making a mental note to vote this year, and settles in to wait. 

It only takes another five minutes, and then the girl nods and smiles and shakes Grimmy’s hand and leaves. Grimmy sits back down next to Harry, rolling his chair just far enough away that he can look at Harry flat-out. 

“You gave up my desk,” Harry says, surprised at how croaky and weak his voice sounds. “Grim.” 

“You gave it up yourself when you stopped coming in,” Grimmy says gently. “Harry. You don’t have time for a job. You hardly have time for a life.” 

Harry sniffs and rubs at his nose. “Is this because I – because I wanted – because I can stop, I don’t need to do it anymore.” He sniffs, and it sounds wet. “I promise.” 

“Harry,” Grimmy smiles. He cradles Harry’s face between his ridiculously big hands. He leans forward and kisses him, very softly, on the mouth. “I’m not a prize you win for being flirty enough, and you’re not someone who has to try very hard to be loved. You’ll be okay.” 

“But,” Harry starts. He joggles his knee up and down, watching the way his shoelaces flop about. “I don’t know what I did wrong.”

Grimmy rolls over to Harry, so close they’re bumping together all along their knees, and wraps his arms around Harry. “You need to go be a big successful lawyer, or whatever it is you decide to do. And I need to stop falling for every beautiful intern that comes my way.” 

“Employee,” Harry protests. “I got paid.” 

“Love you, is the thing,” Grimmy sighs into Harry’s hair. “Too much to keep you here. Or to see you every day.” 

They sit like that for a long, long time. Sniffling, Grimmy pulls back, and Harry wipes at his nose and stands up, slinging his bag over his shoulder as he goes. “Not goodbye, right?” he asks. 

Grimmy tweaks his nose. “See you around, intern.” 

Harry can’t help but grin. “Thanks, sir.” 

Grimmy swats his arse on the way out, and it doesn’t feel like a loss, really. It still feels sad. 

“Are you running late?” Liam rings Harry to ask. “I’ve got us a table.” 

“I’m on my way, I’m maybe five minutes out,” Harry says, double-checking that the street is safe to cross as he heads to meet Liam for lunch. 

He can hear Liam rifling through his backpack at the table, probably looking for his tablet so that he can get some reading done while he waits for Harry. “Five minutes!” Harry repeats. 

To be fair, “five minutes” was a close guess. So it turns out to be more like fifteen. It’s still close. “Because it’s your birthday,” Liam just grins, looking pleased as punch. 

“You’ve either gotten laid or gotten a gig,” Harry observes. “Which is it?” 

“I don’t have the glow,” Liam insists. He fidgets with his fork as they wait for their hamburgers to arrive. “Alright, I got a gig. It’s for a wedding. I’m to be a wedding singer. I’ll have to wear a suit.” 

He sounds so excited about it, Harry starts smiling, too. He’s been a wedding singer before, as well. He’s almost forgotten how amazing it feels to perform for a bunch of people, to make their day feel that little bit better. Especially at a wedding, where people are already so full of love. 

Liam goes on, “The only thing is, it’d be nice if I had my own band, so that they wouldn’t have to pay the DJ for the musical backing, too.” 

“You ever thought of learning anything?” Harry asks. 

“Bit of guitar,” Liam shrugs, “bit of keyboard. Not great at either, really.” 

 _All you really need is a few chords_ , Harry thinks. “You know, Niall plays. Maybe he could show you something sometime, you could have a jam session.” 

“Really?” Liam asks, brightening at once. “That’d be lovely. Would you set that up?” 

“I’m not your wife,” Harry says, because he’s had to remind Liam of that when Liam forgets and co-opts him. 

Liam just grins. “You love it.” 

Scowling, Harry says, “You love me.” 

“I do indeed,” Liam says. He frowns. “You looked sad when you got here, are you alright?” 

“Yeah, Nick – Grimmy let me go, from the radio station.” 

“Did he give you a bunch of CDs?” Liam asks interestedly. 

“I forgot to ask.” 

Liam squeezes Harry’s hand absently on the tabletop, his eyes on their food as the waiter sets it on the table. “Shame, that.” 

“Eh,” Harry says, picking up the ketchup bottle. “It’ll be alright.” 

Liam has to rush off for a study session that he forgot he had as soon as their lunch is over, so Harry rings Niall. It’s as good a time as any and he hates making the long walk back to his flat by himself, not that he doesn’t love the streets or the trees with bare branches reaching up to the sky like windows with no glass panes in them. He just prefers to have a bit of company. 

“You never called,” Harry says, when Niall picks up. “Should I take that as a bad sign?” 

“We’re going on a date in like,” Niall yawns, “less than a week. What, you want to talk about what you’re wearing?” 

“No. Well, yes. Because I only have one pair of suit trousers so I’ll need to take them to the cleaners if I’m to wear them.” 

Niall tries to groan, but it comes out sounding like a laugh. “Don’t wear your suit trousers. Is that what you called for?” 

“Why are you trying to get rid of me so fast?” Harry asks suspiciously. “Are you in the middle of something? Or should I say, someone?” 

This time, Niall really does groan. “Would you shut up, mentality of a five year-old,” he mutters. “No, I’m at work, I’m meant to be doing. As one does at work.” 

“Can I come by?” Harry asks, already steering his feet toward the Student Union. 

He can almost see Niall shrugging in his mind’s eye, the way it’s so fast and smooth, weight sloughing off his back. “You can do whatever you want, mate.”  
“Be there in five.” 

Niall’s leaning on the bar, wiping down a glass with a rag in his hand, when Harry arrives. His attention is trained on a match playing on the telly, and Harry pauses for a moment before Niall notices him just to look at him. The line of his shoulders and the way the tips of his dark hair are beginning to curl around his temples. 

“Hey,” Harry announces himself, and Niall turns round.

He smiles. “Thank God you’re here, this match wasn’t going at all the way I wanted.”

“Who’s playing?”

“Oh, Messi. It’s a recorded match, I just like it on in here. It’s not a proper pub without a bit of footie, is it?”

Harry drops his bag underneath a barstool and climbs up, settles down with his arms braced on the surface. It’s not sticky, which surprises him. This bar is cleaner than most he’s been to. Niall finishes drying the glass in his hand and sets it down in front of Harry. “Beer or…well, beer, today?”

“I’ll take whatever you like,” Harry just says, putting his coat and scarf on the seat next to him. “Don’t let me keep you from working, I’m just…I didn’t want to go home, really. My flatmates are having a row over a hairbrush, I think it is.”

Niall winces. “It’s not even midterms yet, that’s not good.”

“I know,” Harry agrees, taking a sip of the amber malt in front of him. “This is great,” he says, surprised.

“It’s cider,” Niall says dryly. “It won’t get busy for a few hours at least. D’you want to study together?”

So Harry moves over to a table at the edge of the cluster of tables the bar has got, he and Niall working in tandem to take the chairs off the tabletops and turn them right side up.

It’s the same old boring material, Obligations I and Public Law, but it doesn’t seem as daunting as it does with Gigi breezing through the material and Sarah quietly snuffling her sobs into her sleeve. In fact, Niall seems to really enjoy what he’s learning, and he’s good about having a reward system for memorizing something correctly. Their table is loaded with chips, crisps, and one of those little paper trays full of sliced pickles.

“This is the most disgusting dinner I’ve ever had,” Harry groans, pushing the pickles away. “My mouth tastes like something’s dying. Not even dead, still dying.”

Niall laughs. “Well, that’s what my connections get you.” He looks around, not in a pushy way, but noticeably enough that Harry looks round, too.

“It’s getting busy,” Harry observes. “I should go. But, like, thank you? For letting me, I don’t know. Hide out with you, sort of.”

“Anytime,” Niall says. It sounds like he means it.

Harry pulls his beanie back on over his curls. He smiles. “See you later.”

“No suit trousers,” Niall reminds him, so Harry figures it’s okay to lean in and press a kiss to his face. He lands on a soft spot between his mouth and the sharp edge of his jaw, and Harry lets himself smell Niall before he pulls back.

It isn’t until Harry’s laid up in bed with his Property Law textbook that he gets the text from Niall. _u liar_

Smiling, Harry texts back a row of question marks.

_u didn’t tell me it was yr birthday_

Harry stops. _Didn’t seem important_ he decides, and sends it off.

 _hope it was a good one??_ Niall sends next.

His mum and Gemma texted. Some of his school friends. No one but Liam knew, here. And Alice didn’t text. But it’s… _good_ , Harry just confirms. Then, _thank you_

Niall texts back the blushing smiley face and the monkey covering its eyes, as well as one of the ones that looks like it’s blowing a kiss. Harry will probably spend the entire next morning trying to decode the message. For now, he just rolls over and closes his eyes, his phone with the message still open like a little bird sat on his chest.  

His phone buzzes again in the middle of the night. Harry pulls up the message before he’s even fully awake, and Niall’s voicemail fills the room. 

“Realized it wasn’t right so - oh, one, good morning, because you’re asleep right now,” he strums a guitar, “wasn’t right for someone not to sing you happy birthday on your birthday. So here’s Wonderwall.” Niall clears his throat. “Happy birthday…” Harry closes his eyes, and his face hurts for how much he’s smiling. 


	29. it only hurts when i'm breathing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> canon compliant zouis, set from april 2015-february 2016.

April 2015

Coming down after a show is always a struggle for Louis. Half the time he can’t even be bothered to duck into the showers at the stadium or slip into one of the hotel rooms the label rented for them, he’s too keyed up not to stay on the bus with his best mates around, buzzing like a pinball thrown back and forth and all around. He used to think that’s what his brain felt like, a pinball. Now he realizes it’s his heart.

Johannesburg is cold in March and Louis needs a smoke, and even though Louis makes a tremendous effort to pretend that Harry doesn’t exist most of the time, he knows how much he’ll complain when he climbs aboard tomorrow morning and the place smells like one of those cheap hotel rooms Louis’s mum used to rent for them on family holidays to the beach because the beach is free. It’s some kind of sick joke, now, that Louis can’t quit smoking even though Zayn gave him the fucking habit and quit the band.

Louis slips his phone out of the pocket of his joggers, his thumb hovering over his voicemail. He shouldn’t press it. Zayn doesn’t deserve it. He should just delete it and he can fuck right off. He should also probably block his number or get a new phone, for that matter. Louis presses play.

_Hey mate, just calling to see how you and the boys are doing, like. I know we haven’t talked and, uh, I’m sorry about that. Call me back, man._

Idiot. Fucking stupid beautiful idiot. Louis clicks his phone shut, zips his hoodie up to his chin, flicks his cigarette butt away into the dark and and stomps up the stairs to the tour bus.

May 2015

_You fucking idiot, Lou, what did you have to go and tweet about it for? I know you’ve got some shit problems with me but that’s our fucking deal, you fucking prick. I didn’t say shit when you thought you could own a fucking football team, so just. If you don’t want to be a part of life anymore, then fucking act like it, like._

Zayn hangs up the phone suddenly. That’s what Louis’s addled mind latches onto. He clumsily tries to rewind the audio file and replay it, but someone dances into his back and he lurches to the side, struggling to hold his balance. Maybe this is what Harry feels like all the time, the lumbering oaf. Maybe Louis should have a go at him next, see what he does. Niall would be so disappointed in them.

“Wotcher, mate,” Louis says, even though the person who almost knocked him over isn’t paying him any more mind. He swallows hard and clutches the drink in his hand to his chest, which is wet with some – something. Some kind of drink, he’s not sure what Stan handed him when he thrust a drink into his hand at the bar and said the best way to get over someone is by getting under someone else.

A beautiful young woman takes the drink out of his hand and sets it down on the nearest flat surface – a window ledge. The part of Louis’s brain that’s big brother to a brood of half a dozen kids says quite calmly, _That might fall on someone. You should put glass somewhere safe._ The rest of Louis ignores it.

“Are you gonna buy me another one, then?” Louis asks, and she throws back her head and laughs, leading him out to the dance floor.

July 2015

“What are you doing?” Liam asks, hustling into the dressing room with Niall in tow. Louis quickly drops his phone from his ear. He looks up to find that Niall’s hair is gelled up off his forehead and he’s wearing a black t-shirt, which must mean it’s almost stage time.

“What are you doing?” Louis asks, because he’s a mature adult.

“Wrangling this one up for stage, he was giving an interview, the proper pop star.” Liam elbows Niall and Niall scowls, drawing his arm up to protect himself. He’s been in a spot of temper since something to do with Selena and Harry, Louis doesn’t follow all the details.

“Do I not look stage-ready to you?” Louis asks, gesturing to himself. In point of fact he’s wearing a sleeveless shirt and a pair of trousers, which is about as fancy as it gets in their camp these days. Long gone are the days when he’d put up with a pair of suspenders hoisting his jeans up into his crotch for the sake of fashion. Besides, this is trendy. Lottie says the kids call it “grunge.”

Liam and Niall trade an eyebrows-raised look, so Louis turns to Harry, who’s ambled in behind them with his hair curling round his shoulders and his froggy face pursed in a look of discontent. “I definitely look better than Harold, anyway. What’s that your wearing, your nan’s curtains?”

“Actually, no, they’re your nan’s,” Harry says breezily. He doesn’t stop on his way through the room to chat, or for Louis to mount another assault. Louis trained him well, that one.

“Come on,” Liam says, putting his hand on Louis’s shoulder.

So it’s not till after the show, where Louis _mostly_ remembered the lines to “Stockholm Syndrome,” he could swear, despite what Harry’s pouty face says, that Louis locks himself away in the bathroom on the bus and listens to Zayn’s latest message. He’s some kind of sicko for listening. He kind of hates himself, though whether he hates himself more or less for doing this he doesn’t know.

 _Louis, mate_ , “He sounds pissed,” Louis murmurs to himself, _mate, I could’ve used you the other day. Oh, I didn’t know what to say and I – God, I read it back and I was cruel. Maybe that’s who I am. Did you know that about me? Is that why you won’t pick up?_

August 2015

This time, Louis knows he’ll call before he calls. He spends all day since he found out about the break-up waiting for it, as though the gossip rags haven’t been saying that they broke up weeks ago and are only just now going public with it. The thing is, Louis’s read that story before. It makes for a good story. It makes the wound seem scabbed over, already a thing of the past. He knows it’s not always true.

Louis films a commercial for another fragrance. He has to wear a spacesuit and Niall keeps shooting him envious looks, the miserly bastard. It’s been making Louis feel all warm and pleased all day and if he only weren’t waiting for this damn phone call, he’d be completely enjoying it.

Filming the advert goes as well as any of One Direction’s commercial ventures, which is to say, they were there and slapped their faces on it so it’s bound to make a few million dollars. He knows he owes it to the fans to be less cynical but it’s one thing to run around NASA with the other boys singing like his heart depends on it and another for Harry to be trying to poke Niall in the eye with the onion so he’ll start crying.

Louis’s staring at his phone in the van on the way back to the hotel when it starts ringing. He jumps and starts and looks around guiltily even though he’s saved Zayn’s number as Clyde, but it’s not Zayn ringing him up. It’s his PA. Louis takes the call.

“Louis,” she says. “We’re going to need to get your lawyers on the line. You’re going to be a father.”

Which is not exactly how one wants to find out that piece of information.

November 2015

_I’m sick of calling you and not picking up. What’s that about, even? Why not block me or change your number? Fuck off._

Louis bemusedly plays the recording to himself over and over again in the green room at Jonathon Ross. It’s weird being back without Zayn. It’s weird doing anything without Zayn, but especially when Harry’s passed out in the corner and Liam’s on the phone to Soph and Niall’s off making friends with the people who work here.

They feel less like a boyband these days. It’s weird, but they’re all so much more gentle and careful with each other than they used to be. Liam keeps patting Harry’s cheek and going out with Louis even though he doesn’t even drink that much so his voice won’t be affected, and it’s just. Even Harry’s been looking at Louis again. It’s like they’re afraid another one of them is just going to walk out, which they promised each other they wouldn’t do. Maybe it’s just that deep down, they’ve finally realized they can.

“I didn’t think it’d last forever,” Niall says, sat next to Louis in an interview. Louis whips his head around to look at him, silently stunned. They’ve done so many album drop interviews now he’s started to feel dizzy with it but it’s shocking to hear Niall say this now. “You know?” Niall asks. He keeps picking at a loose thread on the arm of the couch. Quietly, he says, “I just hoped.”

When Louis checks his phone after the interview, he has a message.

_Fuck, man. Sorry, like. I gave this interview, you know? And, like, sometimes it’s not till they ask you that you know what you’re going to say. I wasn’t miserable the whole time, I don’t think. Don’t think that, okay? Don’t let – don’t tell them I think that, ‘cos I don’t._

January 2016

_Congratulations, man._

February 2016

Louis cradles Freddie to his chest. He’s not a whiny baby, really, and not colicky like Louis’s mum told him Ernie was. He just likes to be held, which is fine by Louis. He doesn’t want to be one of those dads who wasn’t around for his baby’s first burp and shit and words and bike ride. He doesn’t want to be like his own dad.

“What shall we watch, laddy?” Louis asks. He flips through the channels, his phone buzzing in his lap. It’s probably Liam calling to check in on him again, or maybe Niall in some exotic location dropping a line back to Earth. Just saying hello. Even Harry sent him a request for some pictures, so Louis started up a new group chat text for all the lads to see daily pictures of Fred. He’s pretty sure Niall has them on mute but it’s nice to watch Liam and Harry go back and forth on the dumb shit they do to keep themselves busy. Exercise. Buy stuff. Kiss strangers.

Maybe Louis’s finally outgrowing the popstar thing, because he doesn’t do much of that these days. It’s not as sad as he thought it’d be, growing up. Besides, he has Freddie to keep him young.

Louis glances down at the phone in his lap. The name Clyde is all lit up and it looks so innocuous, that little name. Maybe it wouldn’t be petty and angry if Louis muted the call and finally blocked his number. Maybe it’s the mature thing to do, to move on.

Maybe that’s not grown up at all.

Louis reaches for the phone.


	30. once in a lifetime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this one is set in the verse of my big bang, 'feels like home.' a narry boston uni au.

Niall texts Harry while he’s stood in line waiting for McDonald’s to take his regular order of a Big Mac with a Diet Coke. When he’s home he’s something of a health nut but he just doesn’t have the time while he’s in school to think about what he’s eating. Usually he’ll eat whatever he can get his hands on, even if that means rolling up to Golden Key Club or Study Abroad Society for the free pizza. He’s learned some interesting stuff from those meetings, too, especially the feminists on campus one. 

 _Wyd tonight_ , Niall’s sent, followed quickly by, _have u ever seen Harry Potter ?_

Harry texts back, _Duh, though I’m more of a Lord of the Rings guy_ and then he slides his phone back into his pocket to place his order. Sometimes he gets distracted by the boy in the back loading French flies into greasy paper sleeves or the woman at the ice cream machine pulling cold and delicious-looking ice cream cones and forgets what he’s going to say. 

He’s not even got a complicated order, he just ends up rambling and then he feels bad for wasting the cashier’s time and for everyone stuck in queue behind him. Normally when they go out Louis or Niall places everyone’s order, so maybe he’s gotten a little spoiled. 

Harry only checks his phone again when he steps back out onto the street, the brown paper bag full of McDonald’s food safely clutched in his hand. It’s colder in Boston than in New York, he thinks, although he doesn’t know why. Maybe because in New York he was used to being surrounded by skyscrapers and here, it’s like there’s nothing to block the wind. Or maybe it’s just that he forgot to pack his winter coat. 

 _Nerd_ , Niall has texted, so Harry calls him. 

“Nerd,” Niall answers. 

“Yes,” Harry says patiently. “So? I’m not the one who wants to kiss me.” 

“That has yet to be seen,” Niall laughs, and Harry preens. It’s not often he actually throws Niall off a little. “Anyway, I was just checking to see if you want to come over. Liam’s making Sloppy Joe’s because he and Zayn had a scrim and Zayn’s not eating any of it. Plenty for us to eat.” 

A college student, and therefore never one to turn down a free meal, Harry agrees. “You’ve got nothing till like noon tomorrow, right? ‘Cos I might know something fun we can do after.” 

“Sure, yeah, let me tell the boys –”

“Er, no,” Harry says. “I was thinking this might just be a you and me thing?” 

“Ohh,” Niall crows. “Now who’s trying to kiss who?” 

“It’s whom,” Harry says, just to be irritating. His teeth bump into his phone screen he’s smiling so hard and not looking where he’s going, stumbling a little over the curb. His apartment is just a block away and then he can eat and ditch his book bag and take the bus over to Niall’s. He just has to do a hundred pages of reading first. 

“Nerd,” Niall says, and hangs up. 

Harry finishes stumbling through a halfway-translated version of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, his copy of the text studded with sticky notes and annotations, and closes the book. Sometimes when he’s thought really hard for a long time his head feels like it’s buzzing, like he’s actually, genuinely gotten smarter. 

He used to imagine his brain as a house with rooms stocked full of information but the older he’s got, it’s like sometimes he gets an upgrade and all that interior space is expanded from a three-bedroom house to something larger, like a cathedral. The scariest part is not knowing whether he’ll ever fill it, whether he even has that much potential to live up to. Maybe the space was always that big and it’s just that the more he learns, the more aware he is of how much he doesn’t know. It’s a nice thought.  

The bus drops him off at the corner of Mountfort and Lenox, and Harry makes the short walk from the streetcorner to Ivy Street, where Zayn and Louis are sat outside on the front steps, waiting for him. 

“Hey, laddy,” Louis says, and smiles. 

Zayn mutely offers Harry a hit off the cigarette he’s smoking but Harry shakes his head no. It always plays havoc with his asthma and he doesn’t particularly want to take his chances with it, not when he didn’t pack his inhaler and he knows he’ll turn beet red and really decidedly not suave or handsome. Although Niall has already seen him puking his guts up, so he probably doesn’t have much to lose. Harry still says no. 

Harry drops onto the creaky porch swing and starts swinging slowly back and forth, just toeing at the ground with enough force to make the chains sound like a rocking chair. “So, Liam’s cooking, huh?” he asks. 

Zayn snorts. “Asshole,” he says. 

“You could go out,” Louis says. “With one of your other friends, I mean. You know he’d get dead jealous.” 

“And give him the satisfaction of chasing me out of my own home?” Zayn demands. Sometimes his New England accent is so strong even Harry, a New Yorker, can’t quite tell what he’s saying. Other times, like now, his impersonation of Louis’s Jersey accent is dead-on. 

“What are you guys even fighting over?” Harry asks. He scrunches down on the swing so that he can tip his head back against the back of the seat, closing his eyes. He doesn’t mean to nap, just to rest. No one ever told him that you have to give up either sleeping or eating or homework in college. A social life is just – unthinkable. Maybe that’s why he spends so much of his time with the same four guys, why everyone seems to have their people and stick to them. You haven’t hardly got time for anyone else. 

Someone touches his cheek and his forehead, and Harry blinks up at Niall. “Alright there?” he asks, frowning. 

Harry lifts his head and moves over to make room, and Niall settles next to him on the swing. The bench gets jostled when Niall’s weight drops down, so Harry draws his legs up and Niall sets the swing to rights so that it’ll stop twisting around.

“He’s an asshole,” Zayn says darkly. He takes a fierce puff off his cigarette, his thin cheeks hollowing, and then Louis plucks the cigarette out of his mouth and pops it into his own. 

“Don’t say that about my best friend,” Louis says mildly. 

“You’re _my_ best friend,” Zayn says, sounding a little wounded. 

Niall rolls his eyes. Somehow his hand found its way onto Harry’s shoulder and Harry’s trying very, very hard not to grab his arm and curl it around his shoulders or stick his face up against the top of Niall’s ribs exposed by his tank top. It’s not that it’d be weird, really, but he doesn’t want Zayn to think he’s not been listening. Harry settles for tickling Niall’s armpit instead. Niall just clamps his arm down on Harry’s hand. 

“Well?” Niall prompts him. 

Zayn looks a little embarrassed, which more probably than not means he and Liam had a silly argument that he knows is silly but, for the point of pride, won’t admit to. 

“We won’t do that,” he murmurs to Niall. “Right?” 

“What would we even argue about?” Niall pats Harry’s knee. Harry’s smile takes over his whole face, he’s so unutterably pleased. The sun sets slowly down Ivy Street, and gold and red leaves blow down the sidewalk. The air tastes like barbecue smoke and rain and fall, the rich scent of rotting leaves and the exaggeration of fecundity before winter sets in. 

There’s a blue 1997 Jeep parked on the street with a for sale sign in the window that he knows Liam’s been thinking of buying, and the house opposite theirs has a couch in the front yard waiting for garbage pick up. 

Louis will probably send them over for it later when he’s in drunken Vice President of Delta Lambda mode and in need of giving orders. A yard couch in rainy Boston is a terrible idea but they’re all sure to follow through if he asks, and they could always use more places for their misbegotten party guests to crash. 

“Said Batman was better than Superman,” Zayn finally mutters, and Niall and Louis both laugh. Harry smiles, too, and then stretches his toes out to tap Zayn on the shoulder. “Yeah, whatever,” Zayn says, patting Harry’s foot. “Go away.” 

“Yeah, boys,” Liam says. Harry turns to find him standing behind the screen door, his brown eyes trained on Zayn like magnetism. Niall prods Harry so Harry’s the first inside. He washes his hands at the big kitchen sink and doles out a spoonful of ground beef onto a hamburger bun. Niall swoops in and plucks the plate out of his hand with a kiss on the cheek, so Harry huffs and lets him have it, trying not to blush. 

Turns out Liam made Zayn his own special vegetarian plate of fried eggplant and mashed potatoes, so he settles in with everybody else at the dining room table and only mistakenly strokes the long line of Harry’s leg with his toes once before he finds Liam’s legs under the table.

The other lads set up in the living room for a Halo marathon, but Harry follows Niall upstairs to his bedroom, where he starts putting on his sneakers. “Mind telling me where we’re going yet?” 

Harry flings himself across Niall’s bed and yawns, folding his hands together over his stomach. “Nope,” he answers. “It’s a surprise.” 

“You look beat, pet,” Niall says, twisting around to look at him. 

“We’ve got time for a nap,” Harry starts. “I think.” Plus, now that he’s lying here, he really doesn’t want to get off Niall’s bed. It smells like him, sunscreen and sunshine and laundry detergent, and the vintage Eagles poster on the wall is as familiar as Harry’s Lord of the Rings poster back home. But it’s better, somehow, because this is someone else’s little world, and he just gets to visit. Special, in a way, because it doesn’t belong to him. Niall has to let him in.  
Niall heaves a sigh and then he kicks his sneakers off. He pulls the blankets up from the foot of the bed and curls up around Harry, dropping his head onto Harry’s shoulder. 

“You’re like a teddy bear,” Harry says unthinkingly. “I mean, a handsome teddy bear. Not like – uh, not like I think, not like I’m particularly attracted to teddy bears, but I mean if one could be fit –”

“Shh,” Niall says. “I’m tired.” He shoves his hand under the hem of Harry’s shirt and splays his fingers out across Harry’s stomach, where sometimes he could swear there’s a black hole forming. Harry takes a deep breath, and by the time he’s finished letting it out slowly, his eyes are closed, and he’s asleep. 

The alarm on Harry’s phone goes off just forty-five minutes later. Harry digs it out of the pocket of his skinny jeans and pokes the home button until the phone shuts up. Somehow, Niall slept through Harry’s battle with his phone. His head hasn’t moved from Harry’s shoulder and he looks so sweet, sleeping, with a flush crawling up beneath the scoop neck of his tank top up to his cheeks. 

Harry pats his cheek. “Niall, bud. Wake up.” 

“Fuck off,” Niall says promptly. 

“No,” says Harry. “C’mon, don’t you want to see your surprise?” 

“I’d rather be asleep, actually,” Niall says, blinking awake. Harry surprises himself and drags his lips across Niall’s hairline, soft skin and soft hair. Niall’s breath spills onto Harry’s throat. “Fine,” Niall grumbles. “Let me brush my teeth.” 

Niall follows Harry back onto the bus toward campus without asking any questions. The bus is full of people coming home from a long day’s work and they sway together with every turn and at every stop, their hips bumping like those perpetual motion things people always have in their offices, and Niall fists his hand in the back of Harry’s jacket. 

They amble over to the little plot of grass people call the beach near the astronomy building, and Niall only hesitates, looking down at Harry with a puzzled expression on his face, for a minute. Then he gives up and lays down next to him. 

“If we were just going to nap I think we could’ve stayed in bed,” Niall remarks. 

“We’re not napping, we’re stargazing,” Harry says. 

Niall turns his head to look at him. 

“I, uh. It was on Facebook, is all, and I saw that it said there was this meteor shower. I thought you might like to see it.” 

Niall says softly, “I didn’t know about it.” 

“Here,” Harry says. He slips his phone out of his back pocket to show Niall. He types his password (Gemma’s birthday) without bothering to hide it and pulls up Facebook. 

“The Orionids,” Niall reads. “I know about these!” 

Harry locks the phone and puts it away. “Yeah?” 

Niall props himself up on his elbow to look down at Harry, even though Harry’s timed it so that it should start any minute. He might miss it. “The Orionids were made by Halley’s Comet, did you know that?” Harry just shakes his head. He wants to put his hand on Niall’s cheek and make sure he doesn’t miss anything, and he also never wants Niall to look away from him. “I –”

“It’s starting,” Harry says, pointing up. Sure enough, little bolts of light have already started darting by overhead. It’s less like a rock on fire than Harry expected it to be, more like a firefly’s subtle streak of light before it disappears. They both go quiet and rapt. Harry’s hand finds its way to Niall’s and their fingers lace together, almost as of their own accord. 

“Wow,” Niall breathes. 

They don’t immediately get up when the meteor shower is over. Instead, Niall says, “The Orionids are, like, what’s left of Halley’s Comet. Thirty years ago, that was.” 

“Yeah?” Harry prompts him gently. 

“We’re not supposed to see it again till 2061, and who knows what’ll happen by then.” 

It’s impossible to imagine, even if sometimes Harry would like to. That’s fifty years from now, two and a half of his lifetimes. Anything could happen. 

Niall smiles at Harry. “I was scared I wouldn’t live to see it,” he says. 

 _I shall not live to see it, but I foresee it_. The fragment of poetry pops into Harry’s head unbidden. The weird thing about poetry is that even if Harry gave that line to Niall, he might not feel it the same way Harry does. It feels like reaching and yearning, but it doesn’t feel hopeless. “It’s a shame Halley’s Comet is once in a lifetime,” Harry says. 

Niall shakes his head. “Nah, that’s the best bit, though, you know?” He flops back onto his back and stares up at the stars. “‘Cos, like, it is special.” 

“You’re special,” Harry blurts, then immediately wants to swallow the words back down. Or ideally for the earth to swallow him whole. It’s not that he didn’t mean it, it’s just that he doesn’t want Niall to think he’s getting too serious too fast. He is, he just doesn’t want Niall to know that. 

“Once in a lifetime,” Niall just says. 

But maybe they’ll both still be here in fifty years, and they’ll live to see Halley’s Comet again. Then it won’t be once in a lifetime, it’ll be something better than that, almost. More improbable, but not impossible. It’s something to wish for, anyway. 


	31. aquaman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a canon compliant narry set in feb. 2016, when niall was gone interrailing. niall thinks harry was in love with him. harry thinks so, too.

Niall calls Harry because his mum rang off with at least fifteen minutes left before their food is ready and the rest of the lads are up the coast, trying to catch sight of a whale. Niall’s slept on the beach enough times now to have been jolted awake by one of them blowing a spurt of air and water out of its blowhole and every time, his heart starts pounding like someone got past hotel security and broke into his room. 

He’s never sure why he was so afraid of that, except that Greg had found a baby bird when he was small. He coddled it and protected it and even used to like to carry around in his hand, but when Maura finally got fed up and school started up again, they’d had to find a cage for the bird, because it couldn’t go back into the wild. It never learned how to fly.

The phone rings once, twice, five times until the line goes quiet. That’s always seemed weird to Niall, that when someone finally answers your call the line goes quieter, as though with all the things you’re not saying. 

“Hello?” Harry finally mumbles. 

“Congratulations, you’re on Radio One’s Breakfast Call or Delete,” Niall starts, and Harry laughs. 

He yawns and says, his voice breaking up on a high note, “That’s not how that works, Nialler, it’s meant to be secret.” 

“Well now you know it’s me I’m sure you won’t mind lending me a few hundred thousand pounds, right?” 

Harry laughs, “Har har,” in that way that means he’s either too tired or fatigued or disinterested to really find what Niall’s saying funny. It makes his chest feel pinched in that old, familiar way, and he casts about for something interesting or witty to say before Harry rings off. “He tried to call you first,” Harry says, “remember?” 

And yes, of course Niall remembers. He remembers everything. Harry played him back his episode of Call or Delete the moment he saw him for bus call, his face glowing when he looked down at his tiny, dusty phone screen and saw Grimmy actually laugh out loud at something he’s saying. 

“He’d have called me, I’d have said no,” Niall says, even though he’s listened to The 1975’s first album so many times that sixteen of his top twenty-five most played tracks were Matty and the rest of the lads, and he even took Zayn to a concert once. “I’d have said no,” Niall says now. He scratches his fingernail over the grout between tabletop tiles and watches the grime scraped away until it’s white again, clean, like it never happened. 

“You’d have sorted out whatever he needed help with, I was just throwing money at him,” Harry says. 

His voice is soft and hoarse and Niall chews over his bottom lip, his pulse pounding in his head. Maybe he’s a little dehydrated. He was in such a good mood after talking to his mum, mostly, and now – “You make me sound like your PA,” he says. 

Harry makes a hushed sound into the phone. It’s quiet on his end, certainly quieter than Niall expected, and he wonders what time it is in LA. He’s given up all thought of checking, which is still – so weird for him. 

He used to have the clock app on his phone running with about twenty different locations at once but on the plane from Oz to Bali he’d made himself delete them one by one. Like he was a ship setting off to sea and unmooring himself one tether at a time. He thought it might be nice, for once, to head for open water and see where he washed up. To stop trying to hold everything against UK time as his standard, stop thinking about what he would be doing if he were a normal lad at home. A normal lad would go on a trip like this with his mates. If he were normal, this would be the adventure of a lifetime.

“It’s what you do, isn’t it?” Harry mumbles. “Fix things?”  

“No, that’d be your manager,” Niall snaps. “And I’m not Jeff.”  

The line goes quiet again for a long, long moment before Harry speaks. “Niall…” 

“Congrats on the deal, by the way,” Niall says. “If you happen to see Don Henley, give him my sympathy for Glenn, yeah?” 

“It’s not like I’m jumping right back into the studio,” Harry says, his voice getting louder with every word. “But it’s not like I was just going to sit on my hands for the whole break, was I? Come on, be realistic.” 

Be realistic. Like Niall wasn’t the one who used to sit up at night with Louis all the way back in the X-Factor house and remind him that they probably wouldn’t make it but that they might, and sometimes that’s enough, or as if Zayn didn’t used to come knocking on his door after getting stoned and piss drunk with Louis and asking if he could crash with him. Niall’s whole bed smelled like stale cigarettes and sour whiskey and his stomach turned over, hard, every time Zayn pulled back his curtain on the tour bus and shoved an earbud in his face, saying, “Here, listen to this song.” And then, quieter, “This is the kind of music I want to make.” 

Like Niall hadn’t known, all along, that the only thing keeping them together was him. As if he didn’t know he fucked up. 

“Go to hell,” he tells Harry, and hangs up on him. He stares at the list of favorites on his glowing phone screen for a long, long moment, but Harry doesn’t call back, so Niall goes to fetch the boys to sit down for dinner of _alimango_ and fried rice. 

Harry calls a couple of days later, when Niall’s in the middle of his four-hour diving instructional so that he can swim with the fishes. Niall haltingly asks if he can go to the bathroom and the instructor nods, so Niall slinks out of the room with his hand over the buzzing phone in his pocket. 

“I can’t talk now,” Niall answers the phone. 

“What are you doing?” Harry asks. 

“Learning how to dive.”

“Oh, that sounds,” Harry starts, and then the penny drops. “Wait, but won’t that be hard for you, underneath all that water? Didn’t you always say it was claustrophobic?”

Niall shrugs even though Harry can’t see him and leans against the wall, chewing on his thumbnail. “Maybe it won’t be,” he says. He’s started to feel a little claustrophobic everywhere, all the time, which is a little weird. He was on tour and jammed in hotel rooms for so, so long. Niall thinks it might be because he got the idea that he should be totally free, but there are still people sneaking pictures of him walking along the beach and the other day Hozier asked if he wouldn’t mind tweeting something in support of his anti-domestic violence campaign and just. 

It turns out this thing, whatever it is – fame and notoriety and too many people on this Earth knowing the way he takes his tea – there’s no switch. He’s just…stuck like this. And maybe he’s even a little grateful for it. 

Harry can almost be heard chewing over his bottom lip. “I saw this play, the other day,” Harry starts, so Niall slides down the wall and draws his knees to his chest, settling in. “Well, really it was a film of a play, because the film isn’t on West End or anything anymore. Reminded me of you.” 

“How so?” Niall asks. 

“‘Cos they waltzed,” Harry says, as if that makes perfect sense. “Even though, like, you can’t un-stir the jam into your porridge, and there was a fire and someone died. They still waltzed.” 

“Harry,” Niall murmurs, dropping his forehead to his knee. 

“When are you coming home?” Harry asks. 

Niall lets the knobby bone of his knee dig into his forehead, staring down at the white linoleum tile patterned to look like marble. Really it just does a fine job of hiding how much dark beach sand people drag in with them. Like camouflage. 

“Maybe I’m not coming back,” he says. “Maybe I’ll just stay gone forever.”

Harry makes a sound, low in his throat, and when he speaks again his voice is hushed. “Don’t,” he says. “You’ve too much –”

“Oh, stop,” Niall says. “You’re not my mum. Or your mum, for that matter. We’re just, like, friends.”

Harry’s voice comes back icy. “What are you talking about? We were never friends.” 

Niall opens his mouth to argue but finds that he can’t. It’s true. They were coworkers and partners and closer than brothers, but they weren’t friends. It’s only just beginning to make sense now that it’s over and he can see the shape and the edges of it. The way Harry used to be all over him at every show and split room service with him after, tie Niall’s shoelaces for him and cuddle his nephew and ring his dad just to chat.

“I think you were in love with me,” Niall blurts out. The hallway is empty apart from him and too quiet. He should’ve said this where there were other people to fill up the empty spaces on all sides but they wouldn’t have understood, and maybe that’s worse than being alone. Feeling like no one can make it any less lonely. 

Now that he’s said the words out loud, he doubts they’re true. They grew up in a pressure cooker and Harry was always bleeding love, maybe he just needed somewhere to store it till he found someone he really liked and Niall was the nearest, most convenient thing. Like a meat locker, or something. Fuck. The backs of his eyes start burning and he knows it’s not just sunburn, even though the tops of his shoulders and the backs of his hands ache with it. Niall takes the phone away from his face and clears his throat as quietly as he can. 

“I think,” Harry starts, stops. “I think I was, too.” 

Niall tips his head back against the wall. His brain is halved: on one hand he was right, Harry loved him. He was right. On the other, it’s not _love_. It’s _loved_. 

“Okay,” Niall says, for want of anything to say. 

“Don’t disappear,” Harry says. His voice sounds clogged and shaky and Niall doesn’t say anything, doesn’t want Harry to hear how messed up he’ll sound. “Alright? I’ll come looking for you.” 

“Okay,” Niall says again. His face is wet and he knows what it means but maybe if he pretends hard enough it’ll stop, and the dream he’s been living will finally end. He’ll wake up a normal guy and Harry Styles won’t love him and he can be returned to the wilderness able to fly, like that little bird his brother kept as a pet. He swallows, takes a deep breath. “Okay,” he says. He listens to Harry breathe for a moment and then he hangs up without saying goodbye, ‘cos it doesn’t really feel like the end of the conversation. It’s just as far as Niall has puzzled out, as of yet. He taps _2 b cont’d_  to Harry before he can talk himself out of it and his phone buzzes just as he takes his seat in the classroom. Niall checks it as surreptitiously as he can.

 _Maybe we can be friends now_ , Harry’s sent. Somehow it sounds hopeful. Niall takes a deep breath and tunes back into the lecture, the pressure on his chest lightened, buoyed. 


	32. our sweet beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> another excerpt from the manchester uni au that was going to be my big bang before i shelved it. narry go on their first date.

Harry kisses Liam’s forehead goodbye and goes to wait for Niall in the commons, where Catie is on her hands and knees peering under Mike’s door. “I think he’s in there,” she whispers.

“Why are you whispering?” Harry whispers back.

“We hooked up last night,” Catie says. “I don’t want him to see me until I’m on my way out. I’m trying to be hard-to-get.”

Harry pauses. “You do know you live together, right?”

“Shh,” Catie just says, very quietly padding to her room and closing the door almost silently behind her.

Niall knocks just a few minutes later. “Thank God you’re here,” Harry says, stepping out and locking his flat behind him without inviting Niall in. “My flatmates have all gone mad, Liam’s asleep on my bed, I think Jess is subletting her room to a dog.”

“Hi to you, too,” Niall laughs, pulling on Harry’s sleeve so that he stops edging away from the door. “You look lovely.”

Harry reaches up to his head in a panic, because he suddenly can’t remember whether he ever took the towel-turban off and sorted his hair out. Thank goodness, he has. He lets out a sigh of relief. “I’m sure you say that to all your dates,” Harry jokes.

“Me dad told me to say it,” Niall shrugs, winding his fingers through Harry’s as they step out onto Denmark Road. “Says it’s good manners, which I’ve apparently not got enough of.”

“That’s true,” Harry nods. “A proper date would’ve brought flowers.”

“Oh, I did forget that,” Niall says softly. “Shall I leave and come back?”

“Not if I have to go back into that flat on my own,” Harry laughs. He leans into Niall’s side a bit too much, but he’s so warm and there’s a pink flush crawling up his neck and he smells so good, like cinnamon and spicy cologne.

Niall just pats Harry’s stomach with his other hand. “I reckon this is a good time to tell you that we’re going to play laser tag in the woods all night.”

Harry pauses. “Well,” he starts. There’s just the slightest chance he might trip and break his neck, is all. He wonders if there’s a polite way to ask if they can go back to Niall’s and make out, instead. He might could do making out in the woods, but he’s seen his share of scary movies, so. Maybe not so much.

Laughing, Niall nudges his arm. “You should see the look on your face.” Harry lets out a bark of laughter. “I’ve seen you walk, I wouldn’t do that to you,” Niall assures him.

“What are we really doing?” Harry asks.

“I was thinking dinner and a show. Too boring?”

Harry heaves a sigh. “Well…” He squeezes Niall’s hand, unable to stop smiling.

“Oh, shush,” Niall says, nudging Harry again like he might be about to push him away. He just kisses Harry’s cheek when Harry steps back in on the rebound.

Dinner is at a Danish restaurant called the Kro Bar, which Harry cracks jokes about until Niall threatens to push him down a sewage drain. “Don’t even know why I wanted to take you out,” Niall jokes, mussing Harry’s hair. “Nutter that you are.”

Harry pushes his head into Niall’s hand like a cat. “I love Danish food,” he just tells Niall. As a matter of fact, he’s never had Danish food before. “This menu is like a dream come true,” he says when they’ve been sat at a dark wood table in the romantically lit restaurant. The whole place smells like sausage and onions, and Harry’s a little bit in love with it. “Look at this. Danwiches. I couldn’t have even come up with that. It’s so perfect.”

“For the record, I’m not kissing you later if you order anything with remoulade,” Niall says, not looking up from his menu.

Harry puts his chin in his hand. “But we are kissing later.”

Niall’s lips twitch. “We’ll see,” he just says, so Harry toes Niall’s Supras with his trainer.

In the end, Harry orders an American Krodog. He only realizes he’s made a terrible mistake when he picks up the hotdog to eat it and all the stuff on top slides right out of the bun and into his lap. “Well,” he says. “This is both embarrassing and inconvenient.”

“I’ll let you borrow my jacket later, and no one will notice,” Niall assures him. His eyes are terribly fond, and Harry looks away. Ridiculous, to feel happy that he’s so clumsy – and yet.

“What now?” Harry asks as Niall helps him into his jacket. The hem hits right at his hip, so the stain is mostly covered. Plus, it smells good. Smells like Niall.

Niall tucks his card back into his wallet. They’d disagreed over splitting the bill, but Harry will just pay next time.

Next time.

“Have you ever been to the Academy?” Niall asks.

Harry hasn’t, but he’s heard of it around campus. It’s their concert venue. Harry’s heart starts pounding in anticipation. “You meant a concert? That kind of show?”

“Seemed like your cup of tea,” Niall grins.

Harry pauses. “You know, this probably isn’t good.”

“What?” Niall asks. The street is dark and damp from rain, oil slicks like rainbows slipping across the pavement, and the streetlights only illuminate little spotlights of the road. A Volkswagen parked on the side of the road, a dent in the right side of the fender. Farther on, a postbox and a trash can, side by side. Even Niall is mostly in darkness, although the blue of his eyes cuts through the shadows like he’s internally lit somehow.

Harry gives a little shake of his head. “How great you’ve been. I don’t think I can follow this up.”

Niall doesn’t say anything, just pulls Harry up the street a ways and presses him against a dark storefront. The glass is cold even through his jumper and Niall’s jacket, and Harry arches his back, into Niall, kissing him hard.

Niall wraps his arms around him, and it’s like the whole world shrinks to the nonexistent space between them, like the rest of the world just falls away. Harry puts his hand on the back of Niall’s neck to angle his head, and the slick slide of teeth and tongue is so good that he lets out a tiny whimper. Niall breaks the kiss, tipping his forehead against Harry’s. Harry goes cross-eyed looking at him, but he can still see Niall lick his lips like he’s eating the taste of Harry off his mouth. Harry makes that little sound again, leaning in for another kiss.

“Stop, stop,” Niall murmurs.

“Sorry,” Harry says.

Niall lets out a little laugh. “No, I mean, Christ.” Niall takes a deep breath, and then he puts his hands on Harry’s shoulders and takes a step back. “If you keep kissing me like that I’m gonna blow you on the street.”

“Yes,” Harry says immediately. “That sounds amazing.”

“It is,” Niall says, cocky again. “But, like. Not my thing. And,” he adds, glancing down at his watch. “We have a show to go to.”

Ooh, Harry had forgotten about that. It makes the empty space between them, and the lack of Niall’s warmth, that much more bearable. He still has to close his eyes and take several deep breaths before he feels like he can stand up on his own.

“On my date,” Harry says, slipping his hand back into Niall’s, “we’re going to kiss as much as we want, I’m going to eat tons of marmalade – ”

“Remoulade,” Niall corrects him.

Harry goes on, “and I’m not going to spill anything on my lap.”

“I bet you don’t even know what remoulade tastes like,” Niall says.

“I do not,” Harry agrees, grinning hard when Niall splutters out a laugh.

The Academy’s glass entryway is all lit up in honor of the concert. The weirdest thing about concert venues is how bland they normally look from the outside. Except for the multicolored glass bit, the Academy is just a great red brick rectangle. Inside, though. The whole venue is standing room only, and Harry can smell the usual mix of concert smells: hashish, fags, beer, sweat, and excitement. There’s always something intangible in the air before a show, like the whole place might be about to catch fire.

Niall touches Harry’s elbow. “You’ve not stopped smiling since we walked in.”

“I love this place,” Harry says. They push their way to the front of the crowd, using the dim lights to keep their faces obscured. No need to incur a vendetta tonight, although Harry’s sure he’s got plenty of people annoyed with him, he’s accidentally stepped on so many toes. “Here’s good,” he tells Niall, stopping somewhere near the middle of the crowd. The middle is almost always where the sound from the speakers converges best, like the sheer volume of the music is enough to shake his atoms apart, remake him somehow.

Almost as soon as they’re positioned, the lights go out entirely and the stage lights flick on. Harry doesn’t even know who’s playing, but he screams along just as loud as anyone else. A ragged bunch of musicians walks out from the wings and fans out across the stage.

Harry looks up some of their lyrics later and figures out that he saw Two Door Cinema Club; at the time, he couldn’t have even answered how many people were on the stage. He spends the whole show bouncing up and down, his curls bouncing into his face, Niall beaming right beside him.

Harry shouts the lyrics to every song even though he doesn’t know a single word, just makes it up as he goes and lets the crowd drown him out. He’s not drunk, but by the end, he feels it. Like his veins are full of bubbling champagne and his heart is pounding with red bull and vodka. God, what a nasty combination.

“Good date?” Niall asks, when he’s seen Harry home. He leans against the doorjamb with his hands in his pockets, and he could just be fishing for a compliment, but Harry suspects he’s genuinely asking.

“Don’t know how I can follow it up,” Harry admits, reaching up and smoothing Niall’s hair back without thinking about it. It’s sort of an auburn brown, and his eyes are so blue, his cheeks so pink. He seems incredibly young.

Niall’s eyes go so soft, and Harry leans forward and kisses him lightly. Sweet and fast, so that he doesn’t spend the next thirty minutes kissing Niall instead of getting his arse to bed. He has so much homework to do tomorrow. “Go to sleep,” Niall murmurs, pulling back, and Harry wants to ask him to stay. Just to sleep, really, even. He doesn’t want the date to end.

Instead, he nods and steps back to swing the door closed. “See you soon.”

“Talk to you tomorrow,” Niall agrees, waving goodbye before he turns on his heel and disappears up the street, into the dark.

Harry texts him _get home safe?_ while he brushes his teeth, and Niall texts back when Harry’s laid up in bed, the high of a concert still singing in his veins. _Go to sleep._

 _don’t want to_ , Harry taps back. it’s a good feeling.

 _it’s our sweet beginning,_ Niall answers, which is so much that Harry just puts his phone to sleep and falls asleep with it clutched in his hand.


	33. i will

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> niall's in a frat. harry helps him learn how to slow dance. (the title for this one is from the beatles' white album, "i will," which i totally rec for this chapter.)

Niall flattens his palm against the curve of Harry’s back, and Harry glances up from their shuffling feet to Niall’s face. He’s a little sunburnt from their tubing trip last weekend, where they and some other guys from Niall’s fraternity got piss-drunk and ended up floating way farther down the river than they meant to. The bridge of his nose and his forehead and lips are a deep pink, and Harry still has scrapes on his legs from dragging his tube through the tall, scratchy grass growing beside the river.  

Niall’s light brows are furrowed in concentration, and his tongue pokes out of the corner of his mouth. He looks a bit silly. Harry’s heart constricts with fondness.

Harry takes a step forward at the same time that Niall tries to take a step sideways, and their legs tangle together like the strings tying helium balloons to the cart down at the park in the summertime. The balloon vendor is a nice guy, and sending Taylor’s break-up letter aloft was very spiritually cleansing.  

 **“** I don’t think this is the way we’re meant to be doing this,” Niall says. He accidentally steps on Harry’s toes again and Harry pulls his hand loose, hopping away. “Sorry,” Niall says contritely.

Harry shakes his head. “That’s okay. Hold on, let me check the video.” He turns back to his laptop, which is sat on his yellow tablecloth with the bumblebee pattern. He jogs the touchpad so that the screen will wake up and unpauses the YouTube tutorial on waltzing. “Kay, so I think…uh…maybe you’re supposed to take a step backward. Here, let’s try again.”

They get in position with Niall’s broad dry palm clasped against Harry’s, and then Niall screws up his face. “I’m meant to lead, though. Maybe – here, hold on.” He slides his hand down Harry’s back, pulling him up and closer. They instantly lose their rhythm and Niall steps, again, on Harry’s toes.

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

“You know when you’re a kid, and your mom would hold you while she danced, so you felt like you were dancing too?” Harry asks. He remembers Anne twirling him around their living room when he was still small enough to twirl, and then he remembers her showing him how to waltz last weekend when Niall asked Harry to show him how it was done, and he realizes nothing’s changed, really. He’s just taller now, and somehow even clumsier.

Niall laughs. It’s one of Harry’s favorite laughs that he does, soft and quiet. Not entirely full of joy or amusement, but undeniably fond. “No,” Niall says.

“Oh.” Sometimes he forgets, is all, with the way Niall is, that he didn’t have a mom who picked him up and played with him, showed him how to enjoy dancing without knowing how. “C’mere,” Harry says, wrapping his arms around Niall.

“Hell,” Niall says softly. “Harry, I don’t think – I’m too big.”

“No, you’re not,” Harry says stubbornly. “Stand on my feet. I’m going to show you how to dance.”

“You don’t even know how to dance,” Niall points out.

Harry waves this away. “That’s beside the point. Stand on my feet. We’re going to dance.”

So Niall carefully presses the toes of his battered Supras on top of Harry’s Chelsea boots. Harry clutches him close so that he won’t fall off, and he can smell Niall’s cologne underneath his usual scent of mint toothpaste and coffee grounds from his job pulling espresso at the café near campus. Harry buries his face in Niall’s neck before he can think better of it and Niall threads his fingers through Harry’s hair, not holding him in place or pulling him off. Just holding him.

Harry has lots of friends on campus, and lots of friends off campus, and especially good friends through the film class that he met fellow non-majors Niall and Louis and Zayn and Liam through. They’re a weird bunch, but it works, mostly because they haven’t got any expectations from each other.

Harry loves them all fiercely, with a kind of protective possessiveness that he didn’t know he was capable of till he came to uni and fell in with a bunch of brothers. He loves Niall a little more, a little special, somehow, but they all do.

For Zayn this means sneaking his hand under the strap of Niall’s tanktop and twisting his nipple. For Louis, this means tackling him in the middle of quad, and for Liam, it means letting Niall learn his order from their favorite soup and sandwich shop.

“You’re heavy,” Harry complains, just to see what Niall will do. Niall merely hooks his chin over the top of Harry’s shoulder, so Harry indulges himself a little. He slides his hand into the back of Niall’s tanktop and imagines that he can hug him a little tighter and find some space between his sternum and his heart for Niall to fit in. His skin is soft and smooth, a light dusting of soft hair on his arms like fine pollen shining gold under midday light. It’s an unaccountably beautiful day.

Niall is kind enough to let him pretend, for a moment. Then they lose their precarious balance and Niall falls onto the kitchen table, and Harry bumps his head on the framed _Lord of the Rings_ poster he has on his wall, and they both laugh.

“You know what,” Harry starts, rubbing his head. Niall looks up from the table. “Let’s go to my mum’s.”

Niall grins. “D’you think she’ll have something to eat, as well?”

Niall drives Harry’s car, ‘cos he thinks Harry’s a shit driver and, well, he might be right. Harry plays DJ instead. He plus his phone into the wonky radio jack and tunes his car to the right radio station to pick up the songs his phone is broadcasting, and Niall settles firmly against his seat when a Katy Perry song comes on, just like Harry knew it would.

“Terrible,” he tells him anyway.

Niall just turns the volume up.

There’s a golden half an hour between Harry’s tiny apartment off campus and his mom’s house on the other side of the river. Harry enjoys every minute of afternoon sunlight streaming through the sunroof and picking up the threads of gold in Niall’s hair, and burnishing even Harry’s tan skin and the CD cases he fumbles with from the floorboards.

He keeps his car neat ‘cos Liam and Niall give him shit if he doesn’t, but he’s usually got one of Zayn’s mixes lying around. Liam got him the radio jack for his last birthday but sometimes it decides not to work, so it’s good to have a back-up. Harry plays Zayn’s mix for Louis, and he and Niall both enjoy Zayn’s carefully selected stoner songs mixed in with Oh Wonder and The Maccabees.

Niall pulls them into Harry’s mom’s driveway, and she’s warming a plate of cookies for them when Harry pushes the unlocked door open. “My baby,” she coos, sweeping Harry into an embarrassing and crushing and very sweet hug. She spots Niall over his shoulder and pulls him in without letting Harry go so that Niall’s bony fucking hip digs into Harry’s ass, and it’s not a bad feeling.

“What are you two boys here for?” Anne asks, putting her hands on her hips. So Harry explains. When Anne’s done laughing, she pulls Niall up to dance with her, the _White Album_ spinning from the record player under the garden window.

“Like this?” Niall asks. He has one hand on Harry’s mom’s waist, the other curled around Anne’s hand. He makes her look small, and it’s a funny thing, but for the first time, Harry feels desperately protective of his own mom. Who, historically, has always been his greatest defender. It’s a little weird. Niall tries to do a twirl.

“Not like that!” Anne laughs. “Pretend I’m not your friend’s mother, love. Hold me like a lover.”

Harry puts his face in his hands. “Mom!”

“Well!” she laughs.

Niall curls her into his arms, his socked feet whispering on the hardwood floor. “Yeah?”

“Now you’ve got it,” she says. Niall meets Harry’s eyes over the top of his mom’s head, and Harry folds his hands together between his thighs and kicks his feet against the barstool he’s sat on. It feels a little like Niall’s asking something, but Harry’s not sure what. And even if he was, he’s not sure he’d know how to answer. He nods anyway.

The fraternity formal arrives sooner than Harry thought it would, which is why he’s wearing the lime green velvet blazer he found at a vintage clothes shop an hour and a half ago. He thinks it looks fetching with his bolero tie. He’s almost surprised when Niall surfaces from the crowd that includes Louis and Liam, who rushed with him, and asks him for a dance.

Almost.


	34. the more things change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> canon compliant, ambiguously set.

“I look like a twat,” Harry says, pouting at himself in the mirror. Or maybe at Niall, it’s hard to tell with Harry’s fringe curling over his forehead and into his eyes. Niall pads across the carpet littered with Harry’s discarded printed shirts and patterned ties. Niall’s bed is already layered in his neatly ironed trousers, and Niall wants to remind him that they wrinkle easy, he really ought to hang them back up.

Priorities, he reminds himself. He’s been getting better at that, actually. Letting Harry disrupt his system, throw his giraffe limbs everywhere and put Niall’s records back on the shelf out of alphabetical order. Harry’s happier feeling at home, even if he’s just crashing at Niall’s place in London ‘cos he sold his old one and hasn’t bought a new one yet.

“Well, yes,” Niall says. He catches Harry’s eye in the mirror and Harry’s face softens into a laugh. He tosses his head back, and Niall can see the sharp line of his two front teeth, just slightly longer than the rest. He feels unbearably fond of the twat. “But a sharp one.”

Harry turns to him. Niall watches him in the mirror, Harry’s uneasily shifting weight and the way he keeps curling his fingers into his sleeves, fidgeting with his cufflinks.

With Niall’s cufflinks, actually. He makes himself frown at Harry. “What are you saying about my clothes, anyway?”

“Obviously they look better on me,” Harry says, puffing his chest out. Niall can see the dark shadow of Harry’s swallows on his chest through his fine white dress shirt, and he pats one on the head like it’s a real bird, just ‘cos he knows Harry will think it’s funny and weird and sweet. Sometimes Niall wonders if he’d ever have done that without living out of Harry’s pocket, and Harry out of his, for the better part of a decade. Then he knows he wouldn’t, so he kisses his fingertips and presses his fingers to the other bird’s tiny tattooed head.

“There you go,” Niall says, feeling a little inane. He remembers what they were talking about. “If you’re slaggin’ me off you can’t feel that bad.”

Harry takes a deep breath. “I don’t like going to things without you,” he says in a rush. They’ve only been on break for a little while – a few months, but it feels so much shorter without tour fatigue setting in, without watching the tracklist on Julian’s laptop slowly grow longer, day by day – but sometimes it hits Niall all over again. This isn’t a one-off thing, like the British Fashion Awards; flying solo is, well, the new normal.

“Kinda hard to look as good wearing your nan’s sofa pattern without the rest of us looking like average blokes,” Niall agrees. He scans the carpet for his favorite tie. Niall loops the tie over his own head and loosely puts the knot in, remembering Bobby’s gruff voice in his ear as a little lad before Mass: “Over, then under, through the rabbit hole…” Niall wonders, absently, how many generations of Horans have been learning how to tie their ties the same way.

Huffing, Harry takes a step closer to the mirror, peering closely at his imperfect complexion, and then he pivots back around to Niall, closer than before. Sometimes Niall thinks that being friends with Harry is a little like playing catch and release with the fish on Loch Siobhair.

Harry obediently ducks his head when Niall taps him on the shoulder so that Niall can loop the tie over his head, and then he lets Niall pop his collar and fit the tie under. His breath smells like Niall’s own minty toothpaste and Harry’s own irremovable Harry-smell, like coconut oil and suntan lotion and watermelon.

“There you are,” Niall says, tightening the tie up to Harry’s throat. His skin’s a little irritated, like he must’ve bothered to shave, and Niall struggles between rolling his eyes and hugging him. Shaving, honestly.

“Niall,” Harry murmurs.

Niall turns away to scoop up the clothes Harry discarded, hiding his face till he feels less bereft. It’s not like anyone _died_ , not like he’s got Harry’s or Louis’s or Liam’s number blocked, but Jesus, it’s weird to be stood around in his joggers and the t-shirt with the hole in the collar from Louis borrowing it, and not to be going out with Harry. The paps are going to be all over him and there’s naught to be anyone with him to field questions but security.

Niall takes a deep breath. He dumps his armload of ties and printed shirts onto the bed, and then he says, “You’ll learn to like it. I promise.”

Harry’s face clouds over, and then he sticks his fingers into Niall’s armpit. Niall laughs, mostly out of relief. “Next time,” Harry starts, so Niall goes back to heaping up his clothes onto the bed to hang back up in his closet. “Next time, you can come too.”

“I get nominated, I’m gonna win,” Niall warns him.

Harry tries to stick his finger in Niall’s ear and Niall hip-checks him so that Harry wobbles unsteadily for a second. “Yeah,” Harry finally says. “We’ll be, like, enemies, competing for all the same awards and things.”

Niall hands Harry the watch Liam gave him to commemorate their last show. The silver watch glints on Harry’s knobby wrist, and it’s soothing just that it’s there, like a reminder that it was all real, that it all happened.

“I’ll want you to win more than I want to win,” Harry admits, looking up with a quick grin.

Niall looks down at his socked feet. Silly, awful, heartfelt Harry, Niall thinks. “Me, too,” he agrees, giving Harry a smile. Harry relaxes, and he instantly looks more at ease in his pilfered coat and tie. “If you really loved me as much as all that, you’d bring back donuts,” he tells him.

Harry makes himself look aghast. Then he ruffles Niall’s rumpled hair and checks his phone. Outside, his driver honks the horn. “The jelly-filled kind?”

“You know me well, Styles.”

“Indeed,” Harry agrees, faux-seriously. Niall listens to Harry trot down the hall. The front door opens, and his security system gives a warning beep. Niall sets about putting his clothes away and then, thinking better of it, he stows his ties in the wooden bureau next to his shoe rack. Knowing Harry, he’ll only be picking through Niall’s wardrobe again tomorrow like the quirky little raven he is. 

It’s not as much of a pain in the arse as Niall thought it’d be, actually. 


	35. why don't you ask him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> canon compliant narry set early 2016. you can do everything right and still not get what you want, niall knows. so he lets harry kiss him.

The camera flash goes off while Niall’s cutting his steak into bite-sized pieces. He likes to do the whole thing at once so that he can scoop a bit of mashed potatoes with the bite of steak on the end of his fork, pop it in his mouth, and then go for the green beans. The perfect mouthful. He looks up at Harry with the most unamused face he can muster.

“Is me eating really that interesting?”

“Everything you do is interesting,” Harry says, his hand ready and waiting for the old camera to spit out the used film. The Kodak makes a whiny, angry noise, and then it slowly feeds the picture into Harry’s hand. Neat as can be, Harry slips it into his coat pocket, out of sight.

He never lets Niall look at his pictures. He’s nice enough about it, but – still. Niall tries not to think of every shot of himself as some tiny bit of Niall captured by Harry and folded away into his collection of funny little shots.

“That’s not what you told me last night, when I wanted to watch golf,” Niall points out, because he knows how this goes.

Harry groans. “It was _golf_ , Niall. I don’t want to hear blokes natter on about putts and the green when you’ve got my dick in your mouth.”

Despite himself, Niall smiles. “Language,” he just says mildly, because he knows it’ll make Harry all huffy. Plus, it’s really not poor advice. They’re sat at a steakhouse in LA with a good reputation for getting celebrities in and out without being noticed, even dumb popstars who wear Packers beanies like they’re a good disguise.

Niall reaches across the table and plucks it off Harry’s head without thinking about it. “You look like a goof,” he just says, smiling when Harry captures Niall’s feet between the two of his under the table. Niall puts the beanie on over his soft hair. “Looks better on me, anyway.”

Harry props his chin up on the heel of his hand, his eyes unbearably soft. He doesn’t argue. Niall takes a deep breath, tries to swallow past the unspoken words in his throat. He hadn’t meant to ever start shagging Harry, and then they’d kissed sometime in the middle of recording the new album, and, well. Here they are.

Not that it’s, like. Anything. Harry’s got more job offers and contracts open to him here in LA than he knows what to do with, although Niall knows he’s considering his options carefully. And it’s fine. It’s not like Niall meant to uproot his whole life and move halfway across the world for his not-boyfriend, anyway, but it’d be nice to have Harry’s dumb smiling face to look forward to on regular Facetime calls or lengthy descriptions of his spa day over the phone. Like Niall’s heard Louis and Eleanor do, or Liam and Soph. He’s got his own work stuff, too, and. It’d just be nice if this thing, whatever it is, with Harry would stay the same.

Harry reaches out and pulls the bottom of the beanie lower, so that it’s covering Niall’s forehead. “Nice and warm,” he agrees. “Can I borrow that shirt later?”

“It’s yours, anyway,” Niall shrugs.

The valet brings Harry’s sports car around, and Harry slides into the driver’s seat. Niall gets comfortable in the passenger seat, and he doesn’t say anything when Harry takes the ramp onto I-10, his foot pressing gently down on the pedal until they’re flying along at ninety-five miles per hour. Harry cranks up Adele’s new album, and Niall tips his head back against the seat and watches the scenery fly by.

Harry surprises him by reaching over the center console and taking Niall’s hand. “Do you remember the first time we came here?” Harry asks, grinning. “When we were so little?”

Niall squeezes Harry’s hand. “I remember you begging us to go skinny dipping in the hotel pool.” Harry smiles wide, his face getting all creased up and sweet. “I remember security catching us and threatening to call the police until we called Paul.”

“He was so mad,” Harry laughs. “Liam couldn’t figure out why he was so angry with us, kept asking about it all the next day.”

“I’ve seen your naked ass more than anybody else in me life,” Niall reflects, Harry pressing his thumb to the center of Niall’s palm until he gets it and lets Harry slot their fingers together.

Harry pulls their hands over into his lap. “That’s how I want you to remember me,” he says. “When you’re back in London becoming the next Springsteen. I hope you never see a bare arse in your life without thinking of me.”

“You overestimate yourself,” Niall snorts, propping his elbow up on the edge of the window. He keeps his gaze trained on the window so that Harry can’t see his face. “How are you going to remember me?”

Harry hums low in his chest. Niall knows how weird and good it feels against his own stomach, and for a wild moment he thinks about leaning over and putting his head in Harry’s lap like he’s a wee lad falling asleep on the long journey to Dublin to watch a match with his father. Not that Harry’s his dad, but. He has that feeling like he could do, and it’d be alright. Harry’d wake him when they got home.

Slowly, Harry says, “I don’t know what’ll make me think of you.”

Niall swallows. He can hear the whirr of Harry’s wheels on the road, and it reminds him of Harry’s low droning voice, all the time. Wherever they were, Harry murmuring to him to make him laugh. “Okay,” he says.

Marv calls on their way into Harry’s house, so Niall steps out to the back garden to take his call. “When are you going to come write with me?” Marvin laughs, when they’ve caught up on Alaia and Roch.

“Soon,” Niall promises him. “We just have a few shows left and then, like. Yeah, I’ll schedule something.”

“Why not do it now?” Marv asks reasonably.

Niall hesitates. He doesn’t have a good reason, really. And, like. It’s not like work has been for the past few years, it’s not the kind of little jam session that’ll evolve into an album that he has to take on tour for eight months. “February, eh?” Niall asks. “Sometime in there?”

“Sounds great,” Marv starts, and Roch breaks in, snatching the phone away from him, so Niall listens through the same three Alaia stories from the past couple of days. It makes him smile. “You’re coming home soon?” she checks.

“Oh, yeah,” Niall promises.

“Good lad,” Rochelle says. “Alaia, say hi, it’s uncle Niall!”

So of course Alaia takes the phone and starts speaking gibberish into it. Her inflection is perfect, though; it’s so weird to hear little kids pretend to use the phone.

“Later, hon,” Roch and Marv bid farewell, and then the line is quiet, and its just Niall and Harry’s covered pools and a night sky too smoggy for stars.

Harry’s standing in the doorway when Niall turns, warm golden light pouring out of the house around him. “They miss you, huh?”

Niall laughs. “Roch misses me, yeah.”

“Have you ever…?” Harry starts, his forehead wrinkling as his eyebrows go up.

Niall pushes his eyebrows back down. “Married, Haz. Not my bag.” He slides his hand up Harry’s back, and Harry turns easily into the circle of his arm. He pauses on the way to the bedroom just to slide the back garden door shut, and then Harry quickly kisses the side of Niall’s face and murmurs a soft, “Quick shower, mate,” so Niall strips down to his boxers and spends an extra long amount of time in front of the mirror.

He flosses and brushes his teeth, cleans out his ears, and he’s just contemplating breaking into some of Harry’s face lotions when the water cuts off. Harry steps out of the shower dripping water like a great big sheepdog, and he shakes his head quickly back and forth to spray water when he notices Niall watching him.

“Very funny,” Niall mutters, enfolding Harry in a towel.

“I thought it was,” Harry agrees, ducking his head in for a kiss. Niall hadn’t thought of kissing Harry except in the beginning, when they were young enough that he didn’t know how much there would be at stake. And then Zayn quit and he’d started thinking of kissing Harry again, because it was like, why not? You can do everything perfectly right and still not get what you want.

Sometimes Harry kisses like he sings, as if he’s running flat-out for the note, and sometimes he makes it slow, meandering. More like the way he talks. He takes it slow now, angling his head like he’s searching Niall’s mouth for something, humming low in his throat so that the note vibrates in his chest. Niall catches himself arching his back to get his chest and stomach pressed all up and down against Harry’s, so he takes the towel out of Harry’s limp hands and starts rubbing his hair dry.

Gratefully, Harry slides his palms up Niall’s back, cupping his shoulder blades, and then he pushes his hands down, slipping them under the elastic waistband of Niall’s pants. “Want it like that tonight?” Niall offers, before he can think better of it. Not that he’s not going to enjoy it. Just, sometimes he feels like he needs to hold something, anything at all, back from Harry.

“What, me fuck you?” Harry asks. He pulls back a bit as if he has to actually think about it. “Well,” he hedges, so Niall shoves him away. Harry steps back with a laugh, and Niall finishes drying him off quick, so that Harry’s almost purring by the end of it, his eyes big and dark and intent.

Niall crawls up the bed first and leaves Harry to fish the lube out of the nightstand. “Oh, I forgot this was in here,” Harry says, taking out the bracelet with the numbers on. The one with the coordinates of Mullingar on. Niall goes entirely still, and Harry just shrugs and slips it on over his hand, studying it on his knobby wrist.

He took his rings off in the shower and it’s strange, just a bit, when he puts his hand on the side of Niall’s face as he leans in for a kiss, and Niall can’t feel the sharp cold press of his rings against his skin.

Harry’s usually chatty all through sex, even when Niall’s too fucked out to reply, but he’s quiet tonight, almost sleepy. It should be strange, how familiar Harry’s fingers are stretching him open, his sweet mouth pressing kisses to Niall’s face, his collarbone, the sharp line of his ribs and his hip. It’s easy, like something they’ve been doing for years.

“Good?” Harry asks, pausing just before he rips open the condom wrapper.

Niall nods quickly without looking at him, his eyes glued to the textured ceiling of Harry’s house. He’s got some kind of weird three dimensional cutouts done, like waffle board, and for some stupid reason Niall feels like the ceiling is sinking down on him. He squeezes his eyes closed, and Harry leans in, his hand cool on Niall’s bicep. “Hey,” Harry says softly. Niall draws in a deep, rattling breath. “Are you okay?”

“Good, good,” Niall nods quickly. Harry spreads his fingers over Niall’s chest, his face drawn in concern. Niall puts his hand over Harry’s, his fingers bumping the bracelet. “Yeah, I’m good,” Niall repeats, sounding more like himself. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Harry eases himself in slowly, his brow furrowed in concentration so that he doesn’t start moving too fast. Sometimes Niall forgets why he usually prefers this the other way round; he feels a little like a butterfly pinned to a corkboard right now, unable to move. Unwilling to, as well, not that he wants to be anywhere else, but – it’d be nice, like. Just to feel like he has some control over himself. That he’s not already way in over his head.

Instead, he closes his eyes and gives himself up to it. He may not have this for much longer. Better enjoy it while he can. Harry makes it good, too, alternating between short, choppy thrusts and these slow rolls of his hips. He curls his fingers around Niall’s dick and he comes hard, and faster than he means to, biting down hard on his bottom lip.

Harry comes just a moment later, his breath gasping out over Niall’s chest as he tugs himself off. “Ugh.” He just tips over onto Niall when he’s done, ignoring the mess on Niall’s stomach and the sheets.

“Ugh?” Niall laughs. “Jesus, buddy. Thanks.”

“I love having sex with you,” Harry says. His pointy fucking chin digs into Niall’s chest when he turns his head to study Niall’s face. It’s such a dumb thing to say, but it makes Niall’s heart hurt, and he pulls Harry up for a kiss just because he can. “Jeez, your lip is bleeding,” Harry says, touching Niall’s mouth lightly with his fingertips.

“‘S nothing,” Niall says quietly. Harry burrows into his side like he always does, tucking the fingers of his left arm under Niall’s side for warmth. His arm is a warm, familiar weight across Niall’s belly.

“I lied,” Harry says quietly. “In the car, what I said.”

Niall tries to remember everything they’d talked about. “So you did try a grapefruit juice enema?”

“No, you,” Harry starts laughing. “I think about you all the time. Everything reminds me of you.”

Niall takes a deep, deep breath. He thinks about that uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his gut every time Harry spends what little time they’ve got left together tapping away on his phone. The anxiety of wondering if Harry was planning to cancel on him that night, he’d found something or someone he’d rather do. And he lets the discomfort go.

And, like. Whatever happens next. “Good,” Niall just says, and presses a kiss to the side of Harry’s head. Just because he can.


	36. (and i won't) act my age

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written after the last live gig at x-factor studios. just a little farewell, for now.

Harry’s on the plane when Niall rings. His voice is hoarse, like after a show, and soft. Probably Selena is still asleep at his and he’s trying not to wake her up. Harry drops his own voice to match, even though it doesn’t really make sense. “Hey,” Harry says, like Niall is just down the hall in his own hotel room wondering whether Harry will want to watch a match with him. 

Almost always, yes. 

“Hey,” Niall answers, laughter in his voice. “Do you still not sleep in planes?” 

“You mean since we flew into London?” Harry asks dryly. “No.” 

Just like always, Niall says, “Mad, that,” under his breath. Then, “How much longer have you got?” 

“About an hour,” Harry says softly. “Did you have a good night?” 

“Good, good,” Niall yawns. “Party was good, and then Sel came over after.” 

Harry says, “And then you had a really good shag.”

“How do you know that?” Niall demands. 

“Because you only call if it was really good,” Harry says dryly. “Like a boxer, you get so hyped up in the ring. Or the sack, as it were.” 

Niall laughs under his breath. “We did good, didn’t we?” he asks, sounding distracted. Harry can hear him pressing buttons on the microwave in the background, the soft clink of a mug against his counter. “The show tonight. I’m still buzzing.’” 

“Everybody was so proud,” Harry observes, remembering Liam bowing down at the end of their set to hug his parents. He’s such a Karen at heart. 

“Shit,” Niall says quietly. Harry fingers the edge of his journal on the tabletop in front of him. “I made tea for Louis,” Niall explains. “He has such shit taste in tea, really.” 

Harry snorts, remembering the smell of it. Louis’s breakfast tea at two o’clock in the afternoon when he was first waking up after a long night of writing. He can see Louis’s scowl across the table in his mind’s eye; Harry had usually been awake for about six hours by the time Louis woke up. “Guess we’ll have to stop doing that,” Harry says. 

He can’t even think of all the things he’ll have to stop doing without the other lads around all the livelong day. No more setting aside a chocolate croissant from the breakfast buffet for Louis, who never managed to straggle down to craft services in time to save his own. No need to bicker with Liam about times when one or the other of them could train with Mark; they’re not sharing him anymore. No more calls from Niall, wondering whether Harry would like to watch the match with him. 

“Mad,” Niall says softly. Then, hesitant, “Looking forward to it, I guess.” 

“Almost always, yes,” Harry agrees with a laugh. He can hear a soft, feminine voice in the background, and he knows his time on this call is almost over. When his plane touches down in LA, his time with the band is over, too - for the time being. “Love you,” Harry says. Just because. 

Not like that’ll change, but it’ll be different. Niall and the other lads, they’re not like one of his limbs - they’re like his senses. His ears are always full of Niall’s voice and he’s always almost but not quite seeing Louis out of the corner of his eye and he can always smell Liam: the deodorant they all steal from him and his familiar musky cologne and his sweaty skin. 

“Love you too,” Niall says easily; his voice is the last thing to go when he’s upset. “Always will.” 

“Have a good night,” Harry says, and Niall makes a soft crowing sound like Harry’s just slagged him off, and Harry snorts, and Niall rings off. 

…

Liam rings the next morning at 6am, which is 2pm UK time. “Did you go for a run this morning?” 

“You got my number to ask if I was going for a run?” Harry laughs. “I didn’t expect you to call so soon.” 

“I did,” Liam says proudly. “And I boxed.” 

Harry rolls his eyes fondly. “Me, too. And I went to yoga.” 

“Ugh, I hate you,” Liam says fondly. “Your plane landed alright, you’ve settled in okay?” 

“Settling in,” Harry acknowledges. His furniture is still not where he most wants it but he’s figuring it out, now that the contractors are all done at his house in LA. Time he started living in it. “It’s good.” 

“Well, alright then,” Liam says easily. “I’ll call tomorrow.” 

He doesn’t, but he calls most mornings. Harry’s usually ready for him. 

…

Harry doesn’t hear from Louis for a long, long time. Then, “I’ve been telling my kid the story of my life, and I can’t well leave you out,” Louis says, sharpish and defensive, like Harry still holds anything against him. 

“Just tell them the good parts,” Harry says, “like how we once got wasted on beer bread.” 

“It was honey whiskey bread,” Louis says, sounding vaguely ill, still, at the memory, “and we threw up. Of course I’m not telling them that.” 

“Might have to let me meet them then,” Harry says mildly. “You know, to set the story straight.” 

“Might do,” Louis says, all the sharpness gone. 

And that’s how they say goodbye, for a while. Hello, too. 


	37. hold it steady, hold it steady, hold it steady

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> canon compliant narry set in late 2015. niall's going to miss this.

Harry knocks twice, softly, before he opens the door to his and Niall’s adjoining hotel rooms. Niall waves him in, the hotel room phone uncomfortably sandwiched between his ear and shoulder. He’s too used to an iPhone, it’s weird to use these again, even though he’d grown up in a house with a phone not much more advanced than one of them ones with a rotor.

Harry trots over to the outlet in the wall and plugs his phone in, setting his phone on the arm of the nearby armchair, before he begins the arduous task of climbing onto Niall’s bed. He’s like a little kid, the way he huffs and puffs throwing his giraffe leg over the size of the mattress, and then it takes him ages to settle down with his fluffy bathrobe arranged just the way he wants it over his knees and the blankets gathered around his hips.

“Do you want anything?” Niall mouths, poking Harry with his foot in the middle of Harry’s nesting process so that he looks up with a pouty expression on his face.

“Tea, thanks,” Harry whispers back. It’s not like anyone cares whether Harry’s here for a cuppa while they settle in to watch the Packers game, but Harry’s like that. Would rather keep things between them, as much as they can. As much as it upsets Cal, who hasn’t gotten a good picture of just the two of them in ages.

Niall relays the order into the receiver, and then he sets the phone back in the cradle. “Wish these things worked with cellphones,” Niall says. “Put your phone number on the room, or something.”

“It would probably be a security risk,” Harry drawls. “You know Americans bug themselves?”

“They annoy me too,” Niall grins, ruffling Harry’s hair when he’s finally sat beside him, his legs kicked out on top of all of blankets. It’s nice to see Harry’s big dumb foot without a cast on it. They’d both been worse for the wear, there for a while. Sometimes he wonders whether he feels so fresh now because he knows there’s a break coming up, if he’d feel burnt out if he thought he had to keep going and going until…forever, maybe, he’s not sure.

Hadn’t thought of a break until Liam and Louis had brought it up at a meeting a few months ago, and then he’d been so surprised he’d tweeted about it, of all things. Sometimes he’d like to go back and delete that one, but he leaves it there, instead. It’s like following Zayn on Instagram. Posting it said something, deleting it would say something, too. Instead he lets it alone. Which is probably saying something, as well, Christ.

Harry rolls his eyes. “Har-har. I think you’ve been spending too much time with me.”

“Do you know what, so do I?” Niall asks. “I put on me jacket the other day and a bit of your hair was caught on the sleeve. We weren’t even in the same state.”

Harry’s face turns pensive and he quiets, and Niall knows they’re thinking of the same thing. In a month or so, they won’t be in the same country most of the time. Niall wonders what it will be like when “normal” isn’t Harry scrunching down in Niall’s hotel room bed even though he owns a house in LA because they’ve spent the past five years watching telly together at the end of the day. Maybe it’s more bizarre that that became their normal at all. Liam’s been carrying around a copy of _What to Expect: The First Year_ on the Kindle App on his phone and quizzing Louis at odd moments between appearances, though, so.

It could be different for Zayn. Since he’s been outside the weird warped world of One Direction for almost a year, already. Two-thirds of a year, so almost a year, really. Niall hardly ever looks up and expects four other bodies on stage with him, though.

Harry pokes Niall’s shoulder. “There’s a lot changing,” Harry acknowledges. His voice is so slow and low. Niall gets used to the way he sounds when he’s singing sometimes, forgets that his speaking voice is different. “For instance,” Harry starts, “these glasses.” He tries to reach up and poke Niall in the eye, and Niall swats his hand away, the menace, does he want Niall’s greasy fingerprints all over his shit? “They’re very handsome,” Harry drones. “Glasses are a good look.”

“For Christ’s sakes, you can stop telling me that, I’ve already worn them.” And people had liked them. Not that he thought they wouldn’t, exactly, just some shit about looking different. He can’t hardly remember what he looks like most of the time, he’s so used to looking at promotional pictures of the four of them all lined up together. It feels weird now to look into the mirror and not see that blond-haired kid from all the adverts and CD covers. These might be a part of his personal history that doesn’t belong to the band. Maybe that’s why he’d finally started wearing them, though. So that they would be.

Harry grins, reaching up to cup the back of Niall’s neck. His hands are cold even though it’s a million fucking degrees in this hotel room, the heating turned all the way up while outside sleet drives down onto the streets. Niall’s personal self-indulgence, since he’d used to have to help his dad batten the windows when he was a kid in Ireland. “Well, it’s true.”

“Guess Zayn thought so too,” Niall says without thinking. Niall can’t even grasp the concept of Zayn bleaching his hair, to boot.

Harry goes very still for a moment before he rubs Niall’s back like he needs to be soothed, which is kind of like getting a backrub from a snowman, but it’s nice, all the same. “I thought you said you didn’t see him? The other night, I mean.”

“No,” Niall says. Then, “I think he was running away from me. Why he didn’t, like. Was running from me.”

“Well, you are very scary,” Harry agrees, scraping his nails down the middle of Niall’s back.

Niall leans back against the headboard so that Harry can’t keep pawing at him, the child. “Shut up,” he laughs anyway.

“I mean it,” Harry says seriously. “He can’t lie to you. It’s your superpower.”

“I’m not Louis,” Niall points out. “I don’t want to fight him.”

Harry tugs on Niall’s arm until Niall slumps into his side, Harry’s stupid frigid hand rubbing circles on his back again. It’s such a ploy, because really Niall knows that Harry’s trying to soothe himself more than Niall. Maybe that’s why he lets him do it.

He can just about hear Harry smelling him, like he can’t pick up Niall’s cologne and a tub of hair wax in just about any city. Stick a pair of glasses on it and a newsboy cap, and it’s basically Niall, ready-made.

“I think I’m going to bake over the break,” Harry changes the topic. “Maybe I’ll apply to the Great British Bake-Off. Would you watch me?”

Niall snorts just thinking of it. “Christ, no.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t watch X-Factor and it’s been years since we’ve been on, of course I couldn’t watch you.”

Harry hums thoughtfully. “Will you watch Louis if he joins the X-Factor?”

“I’ll watch the clips of himself he’s sure to email to us,” Niall rolls his eyes. “So that’s what you’re going to do, then? Bake?”

“Well, yeah. And then we’re going to go interrailing, you and me. And Liam, if we can get him away from Louis and the baby. D’you think Louis will forget and accidentally sign Liam’s name to the birth certificate, as well?”

Niall rolls his head back against Harry’s chest so that he can look up at him. Harry’s hand slowly scritch-scratches its way through Niall’s hair. “Maybe,” Niall says.

“We can start in Turkey,” Harry drawls, “and work our way back east, toward home. Budapest, Bucharest, Istanbul. Dracula’s castle is somewhere in there, we should see that. You can take gondolas in that city that’s sinking, we should do that before it goes all the way under. Never been there before.”

“Venice,” Niall supplies softly. He hadn’t realized Harry put that much thought into it.

There’s no way Harry Styles could ever go interrailing. He’s gotten better at not being noticed, but he’d never manage to travel around on buses and trains without being spotted in a heartbeat. It’s just a fantasy. Niall knows that. He plays along. “Copenhagen and Amsterdam, too.”

Harry strokes the bit of hair behind Niall’s ear. “Amsterdam? Niall, you dog.”

“Dirty boy,” Niall mutters, because he hadn’t been thinking of anything but the buildings, really. And how they’ve not been there before. Louis always talks about taking lads’ holidays “when they’re grown” back to the places they went on tour. Niall can’t imagine any of those places being any different.

And it wouldn’t be the same. Which is the point, he supposes, but. Not without having everything to look forward to. Maybe someday, like in _Making of Born to Run_ when Springsteen takes the interviewer round to the house where he wrote the album and the studio where he recorded it. When the songs are immortal, and he’s just a historian of them.

“Might run into Zayn, somewhere along the way,” Harry goes on. “I bet he’d love Louis’s kid.”

“Harry,” Niall says quietly.

“Just a daydream, Niall,” Harry says, just as soft. “I know.” He scrunches down a little bit more so that he and Niall have their heads tucked together like little kids sharing secrets. “I bet you’ll have bionic knees by then. I wonder if I’ll have any hair.”

Unexpectedly, Niall laughs. He strokes Harry’s cheek with his thumb. “Not on top of your head, probably. On your face.”

“I’ll have to start wearing a lot of hats,” Harry muses. “It’ll be a lumberjack aesthetic.”

Niall laughs some more. “Then we’d really fit in. A lad with bionic knees, bloke dressed up like a lumberjack, and Liam and Lou and their circus.”

Harry smiles.

“It’d be the comeback album of the century,” Niall says.

Harry’s laughing when a knock comes at the door, and the call “Room service!” Niall slides out of bed and pads over to let the hotel employee wheel a cart in. His hamburger and chips have even come with one of those silver dome lids. Christ, what a life. “Is there anything else I can get you?”

“No, thanks,” Niall says. He shuts the door behind and climbs into bed to eat. You don’t have to worry about ants if you never stay in one place for more than a night or two, after all.

“They’ve brought you double chips,” Harry observes.

“They’re for you, so you don’t eat all mine,” Niall tells him. “Do you know what channel the game is on?”

Harry’s hand sneaks over to the plate on Niall’s lap. “The football one, I think,” he says, popping the stolen chip into his mouth.

Niall settles back against the headboard, reaching over for the channel menu on the bedside table. Harry steadily works his ways through Niall’s chips, twisting his legs around so that he warms his toes under Niall’s calf. It’s their normal, for now. Niall’s going to miss it.


	38. boys of ashdown forest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> canon compliant narry set in late 2015. just because the band's taking a break doesn't mean they are.

Niall’s keys clink in the dish beside the door when he drops them in. He stops for a moment to toe out of his boots and leave them lined up against the wall neatly with three other pairs and to key the security system code in, and then he goes into his house.

Home. His home. That’s what he’s always called it whenever an interviewer asked; “oh, I’m just going home for a bit, watch the telly, go down to the pub,” and it’s always been true. But now, it’s just. It’s home proper, in the sense he might come back to the same place for more than three straight days to sleep. It shouldn’t make his stomach twist up tight, but it does.

Harry’s right where Niall expected him to be, still swaddled in his coat with his face in Niall’s fridge. “Niall,” he drawls, “why haven’t you got any bottled water?”

“Because bottled water is bullshit, it’s all the same,” Niall explains patiently. They’ve had this discussion about two hundred times. It’s not likely to stop happening anytime soon.

Pulling his coat tighter around him, Harry sniffs, about to launch into the second point of his argument: it’s  good for the economy, blah blah blah, so Niall preemptively closes the refrigerator door. “You’re going to catch a cold standing in front of the fridge, at this point, Haz,” Niall points out. Harry smiles, some of the tiredness going out of his face every time he does.

Niall grabs them each a bottle of Blue Moon and leads Harry to the living room, where he queues up the DVR and hits play from his last pause on Interstellar. He’s been watching this movie, on and off, for two days now, and he’s just about to run out of time to watch it, so he’s set on finishing it tonight. Harry tosses his coat onto the couch and follows after it, landing in a mess of limbs.

“Aren’t you going to take your shoes off?” Niall asks. Harry looks around the tiny screen of his phone, where he’s probably on Twitter. Niall can almost see the reflection of his screen in Harry’s eyes, they’re so big and dark, his pupils overlarge in the muted light of Niall’s living room.

“Too comfy now,” Harry grunts back. Niall sits with the movie playing for about three minutes before he cracks. He can just picture dirt and debris and stuff, God knows what Harry walks through, falling into the carpet of his living room. Then he’s out of his seat again and undoing the tiny buckles on Harry’s boots and pulling them off his feet.

Harry throws one hand across his forehead. He arches his back and it pops, probably unintentionally. “I’ve read this romance novel,” Harry says, tilting his head back. “Paint me like one of your French girls, Nialler.”

“That’s a movie,” Niall huffs out a laugh, “and you cry every time.”

“Not true,” Harry lies, his lips twitching up into a smile.

Niall meant to sit and finish this damn movie if it killed him, but now that he’s up, he’s too antsy to sit back down again. Harry ate so much over dinner that he looks like there’s a whole turkey fit inside his belly, but Niall kept seeing people he knew, talked more than he ate, and then Harry still steals off his plate.

“Where are you going?” Harry asks.

Niall looks at the line of guitars on his living room floor. It’s the first room past the entryway, and when the movers had come to drop them off, he’d said, “Sure, yeah, here’s fine,” thinking he’d fine a better place for them. They’re still in their black travel cases, and maybe that’s the problem. Maybe that’s why Niall can’t quite figure where to put them, although he’d had ideas of hanging them on his walls again.

“Not going anywhere,” he tells Harry, grabbing the footstool in front of his armchair and bringing it around to sit on. He’s spent lots of time sitting on the floor for photoshoots and promo and stuff, and that’s fine. But it takes so long to get back up, Jesus.

He can feel Harry’s big familiar eyes on him for a moment before Harry must be satisfied. “I’m changing it to Titanic,” he tells Niall, picking up the recording on Niall’s DVR from the last time Harry stayed over. It is, in fact, at the part where Leo’s drawing Kate. “The most erotic moment of my life,” Harry murmurs under his breath, settling more comfortably onto Niall’s couch, the dumbass fur coat beneath him like something out of one of those novels he knows Anne reads.

Eleven guitars. Funny, how each one is so different, even though they’re the same instrument. Niall puts the cases aside and looks at them, the guitars he’d been playing on stage every night for…well, it’s not right to say five years, but it feels that way. Like the new songs are really somehow the last five years’ worth of touring and promo and quiet nights in like these in hotel rooms across the world. Like the new songs are their whole story, collected together in a series of song-books and put up on the shelf now, bookended on either side.

“Should take a picture,” Harry opines from his spot on the couch, with Niall’s throw pillows bunched up beneath his big head and his bad back, one leg thrown over the back of the couch.

Niall sits upright. “Did,” he points out. Maybe he’ll post it to Instagram when he can think of a caption.

“No, like,” Harry says, his eyes not leaving the screen, “of the guitars. Not just the cases.” Like taking the book down from the shelf and opening it, he might be saying, if he’d been reading Niall’s mind. Sometimes it feels like he can.

Harry finally drags his lazy arse off the couch, pausing the movie and coming around to help Niall line up the guitars for the shot, the guitar necks side by side and fit together like teeth. Harry stands on the footstool to get a good shot from above with Niall’s phone, his balance unstable enough that Niall holds his legs for support.

When Harry’s done, he takes Niall’s spot on the footstool, so Niall eases himself down beside him. Harry shows Niall the pic on his phone, and then he starts habitually scrolling through his photostream. Niall’s not all that private about it, certainly not with Harry, who’s there for most of his pictures. “I like this one of you,” Harry says, showing Niall the picture of himself playing guitar onstage.

“It’s just me,” Niall says, because Harry’s seen him play guitar onstage approximately a thousand times.

“Yeah, but your thighs,” Harry answers, pulling at his bottom lip with his thumb and forefinger.

Niall feels peculiarly warm. “Well.”

Harry keeps scrolling, and Niall notices a pattern in the photos he’s got of Harry. “Why’re you always holding a camera in my pictures?” Niall asks, laughing. “You pretentious prat.” He ruffles Harry’s hair and leans into his hip a little more just so that he’s sure Harry knows he’s joking.

“I like taking pictures of you,” Harry answers calmly, his fingers scritch-scratching his way through Niall’s hair. Niall tilts his head back and rolls with it, because Harry knows just how he likes it. “We should update our Twitters. Matching pics for you and me,” Harry says, his tone light again. He bites his lip as he takes his hand away and starts editing the picture of Niall to be black and white.

Something about the way he’s spoken makes Niall’s eyes flutter open, though, and he frowns a bit. “You know, like. Just because the band’s going on break doesn’t mean we are.”

Harry pokes him in the cheek, and then he’s slipping sideways off the footstool to land on Niall, all the air whooshing out of him. Jesus, he’s heavy. “Yeah?” Harry asks, the bit of Harry’s face he can see past the bramble of his hair smiling all over.

“Didn’t think I had to tell you that,” Niall answers even as Harry sets about making Niall as comfortable to lay on as possible. It’s something he maybe should’ve grown out of, the way they used to all crave a good cuddle in the middle of the band taking off, but Niall’s not complaining. Even if Harry does knee him in the thigh and he gets a mouthful of Harry’s hair when he tries to talk.

“Good,” says Harry, tucking his face into Niall’s neck. His skin crawls with how sensitive it is, Harry’s warm wet breath and the light scratch of his stubble, and it’s a struggle not to push Harry away. Niall has practice at this, though. He takes a deep breath and manages not to shove Harry off him.

Niall thinks that’s the end of it until Harry murmurs, almost too soft to hear, “Like my Christopher Robin, you are.”

“What was that?”

“You know,” Harry answers sleepily. “Like Liam said.”

“Liam is the biggest Winnie the Pooh I’ve ever met,” Niall snorts.

Niall can feel Harry smile against his throat. “Louis’s the owl.”

“If Louis’s the owl, then you’re Piglet.” Harry snorts out a laugh. Niall fidgets with one of Harry’s curls. He’s not used to saying so many things from the heart, and his quota’s pretty much filled up for a while. It’s so much easier to text it or caption an Insta than hear his own voice say stuff out loud.

Sometimes Niall feels like he ought to say more stuff, articulate more. He’s more grateful than anyone knows, he thinks, for having one thing not change over the last year. Whatever else, he’s always had Harry.

He’s still struggling for the right words when Harry misquotes, “We’ll be friends longer than forever, you ‘n’ me.”

Niall takes a moment to think about it, and then he laughs so hard he jostles Harry off him. He pushes himself up to his elbows and scowls at Niall through a smile. “Jesus, don’t ever talk again. That was some sappy shit.”

Harry helps him up and Niall puts Interstellar back on just to feel like he’s not about to drown in the way Harry, the big sap, is looking at him. If the both of them are a little sniffly by the end, well, it’s only because the bit with Matthew McConaughey and his daughter is so sweet.

“Love you lots, Nialler,” Harry says the next morning, cradling Niall’s cheeks between his palms and tilting Niall’s his head to press a kiss to his forehead.

“Go fistfight a bag of sand, I’ll see you later,” Niall just says, all but pushing Harry out the door and into the car they’d had to send for at six o’clock in the morning just so that Harry wouldn’t get papped leaving Niall’s house. Harry waves once and ducks into the waiting car, and Niall goes back inside to tidy up and get ready for the day. There’s the Live Lounge rehearsals later, and then they’re still trying to decide which songs to perform for the Royal Variety show.

Lots to do. It’s not over yet.

Still, he adds bottled water to the grocery list he and Willie keep on the fridge. He stands looking at his own loopy handwriting for a moment. Then he starts getting ready.


	39. i'm just calling one last time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> canon compliant zayn/niall/harry set on niall's birthday, 2015, because he deserves better. (compliant with tmwy verse.)

Zayn picks up the phone with a grunt. “What?”

“Why haven’t you tweeted Niall for his birthday? Did you text him?” Harry demands.

Zayn leans over and snubs out his joint on the ashtray beside the pool. His alligator floaty is creeping across the surface of the water like a proper gator. He’s tried to film it a couple times to send to Safaa but it keeps coming out wrong. Too slow, like. Too fake-looking, like the gloss spread all over Los Angeles like a layer of grease. Or suntan oil, maybe. “Okay, Mum,” Zayn says. “I’ll get right on it.”

Harry huffs. “I’m not fucking around, Zayn.”

“It’s not even – what the fuck time is it in London, why the fuck are you calling me?”

Harry’s quiet. “I’m not in London,” he says. “I’m in LA. And it’s not midnight yet in Vegas, so you should give him a call while you’ve got the chance.”

“How’ve we moved from a tweet to a text to a call?”

“Because you owe him that,” Harry says seriously, in that tone he only ever really gets about Niall. He had it when a fan tried to kneecap Niall with a water bottle and they’d turned to find him hunched over in pain, trying to get off stage without making it seem like he was running away. It still makes Zayn’s stomach simmer, like there’s something hot and alive in there.

Zayn shifts uncomfortably in his pool lounger. If he wasn’t half-high, if he hadn’t had the best four-hour nap today, if he wasn’t still flushed with that rush of having laid down a good portion of another track, he would’ve already hung up by now. He knows that. He can feel it inside himself, like he’s a planet with a molten core. The longer Harry talks to him, the more those tectonic plates shift, the longer it’s going to take him to come to terms with it.

“Zayn,” Harry prompts him. “Are you really going to tell me it’s not true?”

“There’s a lot of shit we said to each other over the years that’s not true,” Zayn says, thinking of the tiny x on his ankle. He’s seen the stuff on twitter and tumblr about his Bus 1 tat, but. But the one he can’t sleep for thinking of is the little screw on the bony round of his foot, and the way it sometimes aches, like he’s put too much strain on it, even though the most physical thing he’s done in the last five years is ride that clear dome-shaped chair that was attached to the ceiling in that hotel like Miley Cyrus riding the wrecking ball. “Lotta broken promises.”

Harry’s reply is quick and harsh, especially for Harry, who’s normally so mellow and slow. He’s got that feeling about him, like time slows around him. Zayn used to have to, like, sit beside him at hair and make-up or crash together in the same hotel room when they didn’t have the budget for entire hotel floors. Harry took everything so easy, he made it all a little easier to take in. “Fuck off,” he says immediately.

“You know this is the first time I’ve talked to you since I called to say – since I called?” Zayn demands. “Like you’ve got any fucking right to lecture me on, like, sticking together, when you said – ”

“I said go!” Harry says. He sounds so upset, his voice breaking a little on the last word, that Zayn freezes, a cigarette halfway to his lips. That’s what they call those here. The first time he’d tried to buy a pack of fags from a convenience store, Zayn’s new mates just about laughed him out of the shop. “I said go, take some time, get your head, come back. For fuck’s sake, Zayn, you were meant to come back!”

Zayn can’t get his fucking bathrobe out of the little joint thing that’s keeping the lounge chair from tilting all the way back, so he struggles out of it and stalks along the edge of the pool, pulling a deep drag off the cig. “You’re just talking to me because you feel guilty,” Zayn decides. The rest of the guys won’t – well, that’s not true. Louis won’t take his calls. Liam would, so that’s why he doesn’t call. Zayn’s felt like he’s not finished that chat with Harry he’d had in a panic on the plane home from Bangkok for the past five months, like some part of him is still twenty thousand feet over Asia, asking Harry what he thought he should do. So he just hasn’t called. It’s not a conversation he particularly wanted to finish.

“I told you I didn’t think I could do it anymore, and you said – ”

“I said you hadn’t got a choice, Zayn,” Harry sighs. “I said you don’t get to quit a One Direction tour, ‘cos there is no One Direction without you.”

Zayn’s voice is like acid, smoke curling out of his nostrils like the thing that’s alive and warm inside of him is heating up, eating him alive from the inside out. Maybe he should take up yoga, like Harry, or boxing, like Liam. Something to batten down that thing inside that keeps them churning out albums. That’s, like, maybe the one thing Zayn’s kept from Naughty Boy. “You’re all running from something, we’re just putting a yard stick on it and calling it a race,” he’d shrugged, one night, over Nando’s burgers and perhaps too much weed. “And look how that fucking turned out,” Zayn says.

Harry’s quiet for a long moment. “Look, this isn’t about me,” Harry says. “It’s about Niall. You tweeted your sister, you tweeted about Michael Jackson. You think no one noticed?” Zayn scowls into the phone. As if he can see it, Harry says, “You’d call me out on something that petty in a second, and you know it.”

“He didn’t call,” Zayn blurts. He can almost smell that acrid burning stench now, another bridge to – something precious, maybe, something – reduced to cinders. It’s been a familiar scent, the past half-year or so. “Louis called me, like, two hundred times. Even Lou called.”

“It’s Niall,” Harry sighs. “He’s always going to love us better than we deserve. We’re always going to disappoint him.”

And it’s like. Like, that ache in his ankle, Zayn’s never felt it quite so bad before. He doesn’t miss Harry, exactly. More like, he misses those years they spent together with Liam and Louis and Niall and the rest of the team, building toward something without knowing how it would fall apart. Like that space ship Niall used to talk about, the Challenger, losing a bit of itself and falling apart before it left the atmosphere, ‘cept it turned out they never really needed Zayn at all.

“Anyway,” Harry sighs. “I had to give it a try. One of us should be able to talk to him on his birthday.”

Zayn can hear his own voice soften, his toes submerged in cool pool water. “What’re you on about?”

“I’m, uh. He seems like he’s really trying to give it a go, with her. I’m just – it’s his birthday, you know? Anyway. You should call.”

Zayn sighs. “Can’t promise you anything.”

“Good,” Harry says, and Zayn can picture a smile on his face behind his drawl. “Something we can’t break, then. Later, Zayn.”

“Night, Harry,” Zayn says. The call ends, and Zayn’s phone goes dark. He’s left alone in his back garden in what would be deep darkness in Bradford. But Los Angeles is lit up no matter the hour of the day, even in his neighborhood. He can hear a couple screaming at each other just down the road, something about a tryst with the nanny. Zayn doesn’t think he’ll call. He calls.

Niall answers mid-laugh, and it hits Zayn like a ton of bricks, the mental image he has of Niall’s face: his cheeks flushed, his hairline perhaps a bit sweaty, his hair a little less rigid, taut. More at ease, like him. “Blackjack champion Horan, Niall Horan, here, who’s this?”

“Niall,” Zayn says, and it’s like he can hear Niall go still, the party around him quieting in sympathy. “It’s Zayn.”

“Eh,” Niall half-laughs awkwardly. “Uh, the only Zayn I know is – he wouldn’t call. Is this…?”

Zayn licks his lips. He’s never been nervous talking to Harry, but he is now, talking to Niall. “Hey,” he only says. He can’t think of anything else to add.

“Hi, I,” Niall starts slowly, then, “fuck off Willie, no one wants to see a fucking magic trick right now.” In the background, Zayn thinks he hears Willie repeat his query, a soft female voice indulgently saying yes. God. Willie. He’d almost forgotten about him.

“Is Louis there?” Zayn asks, like an idiot.

“No,” Niall says slowly. “Do you need his number?”

“No, I…I wanted to talk to you.”

With laser-like accuracy, Niall points out, “You don’t sound sure. Are you alright? Should I let you go, get back to whatever you were doing?”

Zayn looks at the burnt-down fag in his hand, his bathrobe still tangled in the pool lounger. “Not doing much of anything tonight,” he admits.

Niall goes dead silent, and Zayn knows exactly what he’s thinking, because he’s thinking it too. He could be there.

“Why’d you call, Zayn?”

“Harry called me,” Zayn answers honestly.

Niall doesn’t even sound surprised. “Oh, jeez.”

“He went full mother hen, even threatened to leak those pics from Australia a few tours ago.”

Niall snorts out a laugh. “Really?”

“Well, you know Harry,” Zayn snorts. “He maybe would have blocked my number or something.”

“How’d he even get your number?” Niall wonders aloud. “Oh,” Niall answers himself. “Lou, from Caroline, I bet.”

Zayn wonders whether he should be angry with Caroline. He’s not, really, right now. “Nice to know he’s still mad about you,” Zayn comments absently. He flicks his cigarette butt into the pool and watches the filter absorb water until it sinks below the surface. “Some things never change.”

“Some do,” Niall answers shortly. “So if that’s all, Zayn – ”

“I just, like,” Zayn says, “you know.” His voice sounds so small.

Niall sighs long-sufferingly. Harry’s right. He loves them better than they deserve. “What is it?”

“Happy birthday,” says Zayn quietly.

Niall doesn’t say anything for a moment. “Did Safaa have a good birthday?”

“It was, like, yesterday now,” Zayn remembers. “Yeah, yeah. She and her friends went to the amusement park.”

Niall hums approvingly. “Good.”

Neither of them say anything for a moment. “Well, okay – ” Niall starts. Trying to end the conversation again. Zayn lets him go this time. “Thanks for the call.”

“Thank Harry,” Zayn says.

“It’s weird without you,” Niall says just before Zayn hits the red button. Zayn presses the phone back to his ear quick. “Not. Just, weird.”

“It’s weird without you,” Zayn says back, because it’s simple and complicated and true.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” Niall breathes.

Zayn half-smiles, flopping back down in the lounge chair and setting about getting his robe free. That sounds about right. “Happy birthday, Niall.”


	40. move for your touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> narry 'met at a wedding' au.

“Bride or groom?” Niall hears. He stops joggling his foot on his knee and staring at the clock on the wall to look round. There’s a bloke standing over with him with shoulder-length hair and the biggest green eyes he’s ever seen. He looks a little like the guys from the executive offices back home who don’t wear ties and bike to work and who expect at least twelve hours of overtime per week.

Niall struggles not to roll his eyes. “I’m not a bird, if that helps any.”

The guy struggles not to smile, laughter lines breaking out on either side of his mouth. Niall shifts a little in his seat. “No, I meant, which side are you here for?”

“Oh,” Niall says. “Uh, the groom. My best mate in uni.” Niall plays with the shoelaces on the foot that’s still propped up on his knee. “Wait,” he pauses, “how’d you not know that? I was the best man.” He narrows his eyes. “Are you gate-crashing?”

“No!” he laughs. “No, I’m not gate-crashing, I’m here for the bride.”

“Yeah? What’s her name?”

The bloke pauses, and Niall knows he’s got him. “De…Giselle,” the guy mumbles. He coughs into his fist.

“For Christ’s sakes, mate, there are easier parties to crash,” Niall says. He doesn’t stop the bloke from pulling out a chair from the round table beside Niall’s. He brings the chair up close, too, his knees almost bumping Niall’s. He actually bumps the inside of Niall’s thigh with his knee when he sits down, and when he looks up from under his curly fringe, he’s got a mischievous glint in his eye.

The bloke swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I know, but I had this nice suit,” he starts, and Niall can’t help but laugh. “Do I look good in it?”

“Little self-obsessed, don’t you think?” Niall asks dryly.

“Well?” the bloke presses, like an eager puppy.

Niall sighs a little. He’s maybe starting to smile. “Your trousers are too short.”

The bloke glances down at his heels, and then he tucks them self-consciously under his seat. “My mate Louis had them fit for me, he forgets not everyone likes that fit.”

“No, I kinda like it. Like the rest of you is all business but your ankles are free and ready to party.”

“Now you’re just teasing me,” the bloke whines. He’s starting to laugh, too, though, dimples on either side of his plush mouth. Niall glances at the clock again. “Sorry, am I keeping you?”

Niall shrugs and shakes his head at the same time. “I’m only responsible for the groom for another fifteen minutes,” he explains. “We each got two hours. After this, he’s his wife’s problem.” Niall points them out to the friendly gate-crasher, Liam and Sophia standing arm in arm over another table, telling some story. From the way Liam’s waving his arm about Niall suspects it’s the one about the shark attack. So-called shark attack.

“Surprised you’re not out there dancing, anyway,” Harry says.

“Is that your way of saying you wouldn’t mind dancing with me?” Niall asks. “Or that you wouldn’t mind grinding on me for a Beyonce remix?”

The bloke ducks his head a bit but comes up laughing, even his eyes crinkling. “Bloody hell, you’re straightforward.”

“Not good?” Niall asks. At his age, he’s well done with high school make-outs or college hook-ups. It’s either a one night stand or it’s something else, and he’s getting a little tired of one night stands.

“No, it’s refreshing,” the guy says, shaking his head, his hair flying out a bit. He might be miserable in the Hawaiian heat, his suit wrinkling with the humidity, his hair like a wet blanket, but he looks fresh and soft, like a chunk of melon. Maybe that’s a weird thing to think of a bloke he’s just met. “I’m Harry, by the way.”

“Niall,” Niall answers, expecting the usual “ooh, what an interesting name, where’s that from.”

Instead, this guy says, “Irish, nice. I’ve been to Ireland.”

“Whereabouts in Ireland?” Niall asks. “Dublin, Belfast?”

The guy, Harry, nods. “Eh, and the countryside a bit. Studied abroad,” he admits, looking like he’s trying not to look pleased.

Niall thinks about all the ways this conversation could go. He thinks about how much he’d like to talk about Ireland with this gate-crasher, and Irish football, or rugby, and probably food, this guy has that look, and where he went to school, and how nice it’d be. Then he thinks about leaving from a wedding alone. “D’you want to dance?” he asks.

Harry thinks on it. “I don’t know,” he answers slowly, in what Niall is learning is just his natural drawl. “Don’t hear a Beyonce remix.”

Niall laughs. “I’ll pay the DJ off.”

“Suits me,” Harry agrees, his eyes flicking all over Niall when Niall stands up, straightening out his suit jacket. “You’re really fit,” he comments.

Niall waits for him to blush or stumble through an apology or something. Harry just looks back at him with those clear green eyes, and Niall nods, because, alright then. Harry thinks he’s fit, he thinks Harry’s fit. Nice. He’s had worse nights. Niall checks the clock one last time just to be sure he’s no longer responsible for Liam like Liam is a child and not a fully-grown man with a degree from university, and then he leads Harry out to the dance floor.

Harry’s every bit as bad a dancer as Niall should’ve expected him to be with this coltish limbs, but it’s way more fun than Niall remembers from hookups he met in clubs. Like, sure, getting off is the end, but they can still mosey toward it, have a bit of fun along the way. Harry loops his arms around Niall’s neck and pulls him into a clumsy grind as the DJ bumps one of Liam’s own remixes, and Niall remembers sitting on Liam’s sofa for the better part of an afternoon watching Arrested Development while Liam made him listen to twenty-two different versions of the same song.

“What?” Harry asks when Niall snorts with laughter.

“My friends are idiots,” Niall explains. He can’t keep the fondness out of his voice. He spots Liam over Harry’s shoulder, Liam’s lanky body spread over his new wife’s lap. He’s such a ham when he’s drunk. Niall’s glad he’s not his responsibility anymore.

He turns his attention to rutting his hips up against Harry’s every time Harry grinds down against him, syncing himself to the beat of the song. “Have you not got any sense of timing at all?” he laughs, when Harry trips them up again.

“Just no coordination,” Harry laughs, so Niall grabs him by the hips and pulls him flush against himself. “Hm,” Harry hums, although it comes out sounding closer to a purr. The dance floor fills with Liam’s and Sophia’s guests, their bodies keeping the big top wedding tent from cooling off at all as the sun dips below the horizon.

The minute Liam and Sophia wave goodbye and hop into the car to the resort and their parents scatter, Niall kisses Harry. His mouth has just been right there, right in front of him, for the better part of two hours. It’s taken everything Niall has to keep Karen from seeing him with his hands down another bloke’s trousers and his tongue in another bloke’s mouth, but now that she’s gone.

Not that Karen has kept Harry from pawing Niall all over like he’s a bit of pottery Harry’s got to spin and mold. He slides his hands under the back of Niall’s untucked shirt, scraping his blunt fingernails down his back on the way down, and Niall shudders. It’s just nice, like, he thinks. For it not to be a ten minute hook-up in the club loo or a quick shag with someone he’s shagged a dozen times before, like it’s clockwork. For it to be with this kind of strange big-eyed bloke with big hands he likes to rest just above the curve of Niall’s arse before the next song kicks on.

It has Niall all hot under the collar, and he pulls away from Harry’s reddening mouth with a moment of regret. “Okay?”

“We should go back to yours,” Harry contributes. “As soon as possible, ideally, please. Yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Niall agrees. He drops his hands and has to push Harry away by the hips so that they’re not pressed together all the way down from their chests. He’ll see the lot of Liam’s guests tomorrow before his flight, so he doesn’t bother with any farewells, just takes Harry by the hand and leads him out from under the big white tent that’s served as Liam’s and Sophia’s reception hall.

“Beach wedding,” Niall snorts now, remembering how he’d snorted when they’d pitched it. It’d meant hours of overtime at work to afford the flight and his spiffy new suit and all the vacation days he’s going to get for the year, but it’s been worth it, so far.

“I want a garden wedding,” Harry comments, like it’s a friendly conversation topic. “Except, you know, one where I’m not allergic to all the plants.”

Niall says, “Stop talking about your wedding when we’re about to fuck.”

“What,” Harry starts, grinning. “Is that not your idea of dirty talk? Niall,” he stops, jerking Niall to a halt just by not letting go of his hand, “I want green and gold for my wedding colors, and I want the tablecloths to be white.”

Niall groans. “For fuck’s sake.”

“I want daffodils and lilies,” Harry goes on, wrapping an arm around Niall’s neck now so that he can murmur into his ear, “and I want my sister’s baby to be my ring-bearer.”

“You have a sister?” Niall asks intelligently, with Harry breathing all up in his space and licking his neck, his tongue rasping over Niall’s neck like a cat’s.

Harry just hums. “No baby yet,” he pulls away to confess. “Hopefully by the time I get married, yeah.” He goes back to nibbling on Niall’s ear like a very big, very friendly rabbit. He licks the spot behind Niall’s ear that always makes his knees go week, and Niall hurries his pace. “Where are you staying?”

“Uh,” Niall stops. It hadn’t seemed like such a problem when he’d come up with the idea. Come to Hawaii for Liam’s wedding, camp in a tent on the beach and go fishing every day, light a bonfire and roast his dinner every night on a spit for the rest of the week. A brilliant, beautiful, Bobby Horan-like plan, that. Not so great for bringing a bloke back to bed to shag. “Well.”

“I don’t have a problem with it,” Harry shrugs when Niall explains their predicament. “Can I stay to watch the sunrise?”

“What the fuck?” Niall asks, confused and a little too hopeful that he’s actually found someone willing to try fucking in a camping tent.

Harry explains, “The sunrises in Hawaii are meant to be some of the most beautiful in the world, Niall.”

 _You are a slow-talking weirdo_ , Niall thinks about saying. He doesn’t say it, not because Harry would be offended. Because he’d probably laugh and pretend to bite Niall’s head, and Niall’s interested in getting fucked, please and thank you, as soon as possible.

There’s a shuttle for the ride to the campground, and Harry amuses himself by inching his palm up Niall’s thigh until he’s fairly subtly just feeling him up in the back of the bus. Niall squeezes the back of Harry’s neck, not expecting him to go boneless with it.

“That was torture,” Niall says, shrugging off his suit jacket before he stoops to unzip the tent and crawl inside. Harry squeezes his bum and Niall jumps, more or less falling onto his sleeping pad and mattress. Harry crawls in after, turning to zip the tent back up. “C’mere.”

Harry takes his time with it, running his palms up the insides of Niall’s legs before he settles over Niall’s thighs, his feet turned a little inward where he’s sat on him. In spite of himself, Niall feels a little pang of fondness for Harry’s duck feet.

Niall reaches up and starts unfastening the buttons on Harry’s silky collared shirt. He’s not got a tie on, just some silly bits of string tied into a bow that Niall unties like he’s opening a present. He has to peer through the dark to see, everything fuzzy outlines in the moonlight shining through the tent’s fabric walls.

“Weird,” Harry murmurs.

“What?”

Harry kisses a line down the side of Niall’s face, stopping to suck a bruise onto the side of his throat. It’ll leave a mark and everyone will know what Niall was up to last night when he shows up to breakfast with a love bite, and he doesn’t mind one bit.

“Got a lot of tattoos,” Harry answers, after such a long pause Niall’s half-forgotten he asked a question. Niall gets Harry laid out full on top of him, and then he spreads his knees as much as he can in his skinny suit trousers. Every time Harry moves Niall can feel his belt on the inside of his thighs and it keeps making him twitch off the sleeping bag, his hips bucking up into Harry. He crosses his ankles over Harry’s back and lets out an approving sound when Harry takes the hint and grinds down against him. “Wait,” Harry says, making no move to pull away. Niall loosens his death grip on the side of Harry’s stupid silk shirt just in case.

“What?”

“I wanted you to fuck me,” Harry says.

“Oh.” Niall rubs his thumb over Harry’s collarbone. It’s strange not to be able to see anything of him in the dark, just the vague shape of his silhouette. It makes his breath seem very loud, and Niall can smell his sunscreen and the faint traces of a lush-smelling cologne and sweat. “I thought you were going to do me.”

“I have a bad back,” Harry offers at once.

Niall answers, “Well, I have bad knees.”

They stop to consider it for a moment with Harry’s weight bearing down on Niall, his hips moving in perfect, slow rolls in time with Niall’s like he’s not thinking about it at all. It’s almost like the crushing feeling he gets when he feels anxious, but not. Harry smells too much like a day spent at the beach, and he’s got his hand on Niall’s bare chest, stroking his chest hair.

Niall’s sucking a love bite of his own onto the underside of Harry’s jaw when Harry says, his voice gravelly, “Okay, I’ve got it.”

“You ready to fuck me?” Niall asks, shifting a bit. He’s ready to try shimmying out of these damn suit pants if he has to. “Take my trousers off, would you? And get naked.”

“I keep thinking I’m going to bump my head on the ceiling,” Harry comments, unprompted, when he rolls to the side a bit to undress and let Niall unbuckle his trousers and push his trousers off.

“So, what’s your solution?” Niall asks.

“My solution is you two shut the fuck up,” someone offers from another tent. Harry muffles his laughter in Niall’s shoulder, worming his foot between Niall’s like he’s cold.

Niall can almost, just about see Harry lick his lips. “First off, we whisper,” Harry says. “Next, you do me, and I’ll do you tomorrow morning.”

“How do I know you’re not going to sneak off before?” Niall asks reasonably. He runs his knuckles over the side of Harry’s face. His skin is so smooth, and Niall can feel it when Harry smiles, and it makes him grin.

“A good date buys you breakfast the next morning,” Harry says. He keeps his voice low, mindful of their unwilling audience. He starts manhandling Niall on top of him. “I’ll want pancakes.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Niall whispers fondly, hitching Harry’s knees up around his hips. He’s an easy lay, as these things go. Knows what he wants, which is the sign of a really good shag, Niall thinks.

The best part is finding the right angle and timing it so that he presses in close just when Harry takes another gasping little breath, his chest inflating like a leaky balloon, so that he can feel Harry’s breath on his sweaty skin when he pulls back. Like some kind of terribly inefficient aircon system.

He keeps making these little punched-out noises, his hands curling around Niall’s back like he’s trying, impossibly, to pull Niall in closer. He bites his lip until it bleeds keeping himself quiet, which Niall discovers when he leans in for a kiss. He thinks about muffling Harry himself next time and he comes, almost to his own surprise.

Harry makes a satisfied, low noise, holding Niall close like a teddy bear he’s just won from the state fair, and Niall pinches his arse. Of all things, that’s what has him coming between them, muffling a laugh and a groan into Niall’s shoulder.

“I can’t believe I kept quiet,” Harry muses sleepily, just before Niall falls asleep. He can’t quite believe how dirty he is, and he’s not bothered by it at all. Harry presses his face to Niall’s shoulder, the tip of his tongue just prodding Niall’s arm when he licks his lips. “Normally quite loud.”

“Really?” Niall asks interestedly. “Well.”

Harry keeps his promise the next morning, and Niall buys him pancakes. If Harry asks for Niall’s number before Niall catches the plane home, well. Niall lets him have it. No need to discourage the bloke.

He really has got a lot of tattoos, Niall discovers. His sister’s lovely, even if she won’t give Harry a niece or a nephew to play with immediately, and Niall lets Harry have the white tablecloths.  


	41. growin' up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> canon compliant liam pov post-zayn study.

Julian taps his pen against the clipboard in his other hand over and over again, keeping time like a metronome. It’d be driving Louis up the wall mad by now, but he’s not here, had finally clapped Liam on the shoulder and sauntered off to his own hotel room a couple of hours ago. Liam doesn’t begrudge him any. The shadows under his eyes were starting to look permanent.

They just have so much work to do to keep the show going. To keep the big wheel of the band in motion. There’s rebranding to think about, and photo shoots for the new merchandise, and writing for the new album. They’ve had to scrap so many of the songs they demo’ed before tour started because Zayn was on them.

It’d felt too wrong to try and re-record, and anyway, they weren’t sure they could cover him. Zayn’s soprano or those vocal runs he can do. Liam has a soprano, sure, and they’ve already figured out Harry will be taking over a decent amount of Zayn’s vocals. It’s the other stuff they’re not sure about. The way they’ll fit without him. Like he was a planet and they’ve got to decide if they want to orbit around his empty space, like, or move in on it.

Liam’s a little worried how that’s going to affect everything else, though. Last he checked Louis wouldn’t so much as look at Harry, or vice versa, unless told to. Four. Four, now. An even number, an even split on votes. It’s not yet been too big of a problem but maybe it will be, someday.

Liam stops doodling a series of arrows on the margin of his legal pad full of scratch-out and synonyms he pulled from the internet to stretch his back. Harry’s sat on the other hotel bed with a notebook of his own open over his knees. Niall’s standing a few feet away, headphones over his ears as he rehearses his new parts of their songs.

Julian had jury-rigged his laptop for Niall so that his headphones are acting like in-ears, playing back Niall’s own voice to him so that he can properly hear himself. Liam wonders how many other bands have recorded two and a half records from creeper vans and hotel rooms with mattresses held up against the wall and their voices still hoarse from a show that night.

Liam sets his own notepad aside and crosses over to the bed Harry’s sat on. He flops down next to Harry, rubbing his hands over his face.

“Doing alright, Leemo?” Harry asks, his voice soft and slow, his eyes still on the page. Julian doesn’t look up from where he’s sat mixing a song on another laptop, his hair almost as much of a mess as Harry’s.

“Yeah, yeah,” Liam agrees immediately. He squirms a little on the bed, his jeans almost uncomfortably tight. They’d fit just fine a few weeks ago, but he’s not been working out as much lately. He wonders how many more sleepless nights he can have before he starts just passing out in the middle of saying something, or goes berserk, like in Fight Club. He hopes Fight Club won’t happen, he’s not much a fan of that. There have been too many close calls with fans. Liam rubs his ear self-consciously.

Harry nudges him with the nub of his pen. “Liam,” Harry repeats, his eyes very big and green when Liam dares to meet them. His face is still so much that of a kid, but the set of his mouth is so much older, Liam thinks. Like he’s an old man inside a young man’s body with the face of a child. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Liam thinks about it. His legs are sore from pacing around all day and his mouth is a bit dry, and he’s got the faint beginnings of a headache at the front of his skull. He’s not hungry, but he feels dissatisfied in some way, like there’s something he needs. Maybe it’s a smoke, Liam thinks, not that he would light up around Niall or Harry.

He nods again, feeling like he’s a little boy home from track practice answering his mum’s questions. Harry’s even got her soft, concerned voice down. Liam smiles. “Yeah, yeah, Haz. Gonna be fine.”

Harry just hums, unconvinced, but he drapes his hands over his knees and Liam props himself up on his elbow to watch Niall sing. His voice goes raspy same as Harry’s when he’s overused it, but it’s not as deep, so it doesn’t crack up so much, like the roads outside Liam’s house. Like the particles are smaller, so the breaks are smaller. Not less, just less noticeable. Zayn had been like that, breaking up tiny bit by bit until he shattered entirely, Liam thinks, and then flinches away from thinking.

“We sound good,” Harry says quietly, picking at the fringe of the blanket he’s sat on. “Without him. Right?”

Liam nods. “Yeah, of course we do. We still sound like One Direction,” he promises Harry before he even realizes what he’s said.

Harry makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob, although when Liam looks over to him, his face is only wrinkled in a frown. “I had a not very nice thought,” Harry admits. “It involves you.”

“You can tell me,” Liam says immediately. It’s just Harry, he thinks. Probably it’s some observation about Liam’s hairline, or maybe it’s a comment on the way Liam talks to Sophia on the phone. He’s given up trying not to let Harry eavesdrop.

“I’m glad it was Zayn,” Harry says, his eyes on Niall. “And not you. I don’t think we’d’ve done it without you.”

“I wouldn’t have quit,” Liam points out, because he doesn’t get it.

Harry smiles faintly. “I know.”

Niall takes one headphone off his ear. “Is there a reason you’re both over there mooning at me?” he asks. “Couple of sops, the both of ya,” Niall shakes his head, queuing up “No Control” next.

Liam snorts out a laugh, but he knows he’s been caught. So has Harry, for that matter. Harry looks down at his lap, a little embarrassed. Two totally different kinds of mooning, Liam thinks. “He’s alright, right?” Liam asks Harry. “Nialler, I mean.”

“Why not ask him yourself?” Harry asks seriously, in that tone that Liam never quite understands. Is he being deadpan or is he trying, quietly, to keep Liam from prying?

Liam decides to simply answer the question. “He’d say he’s fine,” Liam answers immediately. “Whether he was or not. I just want to know.”

“Boy, does that sound familiar,” Harry says dryly. “Yeah, he’s – I’d say he’s – ” Harry starts, but he’s cut off by Niall’s singing.

Zayn always made his solos seem so effortless it was like he was a train on the tracks with no friction, just cruising toward the notes. Harry takes every song at a full sprint, and Liam has the practiced breathing of a professional singer down pat. Niall, though. Niall reaches Zayn’s old solo in the middle of “No Control,” and the way he belts it out, both Liam and Harry fall silent.

Liam can see the eighty thousand people in the stadium around them, a guitar over Niall’s front, his whole body turned into one big musical instrument in a moment that goes on ringing and ringing just like this. For the first time since Zayn phoned in to say he wasn’t coming back, Liam’s excited to get back on stage. Niall finishes the song, doing both his own parts and Zayn’s, and when he slips the headphones off his ears, Harry starts applauding. Even Julian’s taken off his headphones to stare.

Niall flushes immediately. He scowls. “Shut the fuck up,” he laughs, and Harry beams in reply.

“Outstanding, Nialler,” Harry says. He holds up the notepad in his lap and all he’s written on the blank page is the number ten. “Ten out of ten, you’re this week’s winner.” The dimples in his cheeks are so deep Liam can’t quite fathom them.

Niall laughs. “It didn’t even work like that, you idiot.” As always, he says it so warmly that, if it were directed at him, Liam thinks he might combust from it.

“Well, it was still great,” Julian pipes up. “We should get that recorded, somehow. Do a live album, maybe.”  

“A live album?” Liam repeats thoughtfully. Maybe, he thinks. When they’ve got their new show figured. It doesn’t feel very far away at all.

“Yeah, yeah,” Niall murmurs, his smile not quite going away. “You ready to turn in yet, or what?”

Harry nods, throws his long legs over the side of the mattress, and stands up. “See you tomorrow, Payno?” he asks, stopping at the threshold to look back over his shoulder. Niall looks back too, and it’s the weirdest thing, Liam thinks, to have been boys together and to be men together now. All he can see when he looks at them are himself.

“I’ll be there,” Liam promises.


	42. (a long time ago) we used to be friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a niall pov post-larry look at harry/louis, with a side of narry

“Louis says he wants you to come back downstairs and vote,” Niall says, when he finds Harry peering over the edge of the roof. He’s got his forearms braced on the half-wall, his soft face twisted up in a sour pucker, like he’s sucking on a lemon. Harry doesn’t move, so Niall comes closer, joins him. “What are you looking at?” he asks. Every breath comes out in a little puff of condensation, but Scotland’s not as cold as Ireland would be.

“I think,” Harry points, too fast for Niall to see what he’s gesturing at, “isn’t that where we played our first club show? The Car Park, was that what it was called?”

Niall snorts. “Nah, it was the Garage. A club show,” he shakes his head. Feels like a million miles away, even though it was just a couple of years and nothing much has changed, really. Harry’s face is still soft and baby-like, Niall thinks fondly, Zayn still sleeps too much and Louis and Liam still get into too much mischief. Just the way it should be.

“Could’ve been yesterday,” Harry comments vaguely. “I don’t even remember the show, just the merch.”

Niall laughs softly. “Yeah,” he agrees, glancing sideways at Harry’s face. His eyes are a little red, but he looks alright. Alright, Niall assures himself, even if he’s more expressionless than Harry is, and he hasn’t yet looked at Niall.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Harry sighs, tucking his chin down. “Like I’m…I don’t know, like you’re worried about me.”

Biting his lip, Niall looks away. “Just don’t like seeing you two not getting along,” he says softly. “Like watching mum and dad break up all over again.”

Harry lets out a bitter little laugh. “We’re not breaking up, isn’t that the point? We were never…we’re just band mates.”

Niall twigs immediately. “Louis said that?”

“I mean, I.” Harry rubs at his nose the way he always does when he’s not sure what to say, whether he should be honest or spare your feelings. It almost always means what you hope it won’t mean. “It’s alright, I mean. I get it.” Harry scratches his fingernails over the cement half wall. Niall can almost hear the gritty sound it makes, how aching it feels.

Niall thinks of Louis’s voice, low and tight from behind the curtain of his bunk as he spoke to Eleanor on the phone, apologizing for the fans. “They say there’s two of me,” Niall can remember her saying weakly, half-convinced it was some kind of joke. “They’ve posted stuff to my mum, I don’t even know how they got her address.”

Harry pinches his bottom lip between his thumb and his forefinger, his glassy green eyes trained on the horizon. Zayn’s the beautiful one, but Harry’s the most interesting to look at, Niall thinks. Like something from a folk tale, the story of Lir, maybe, like he might turn back into a swan at midnight. The thought makes Niall snort and shake his head.

“I guess, like,” Harry says slowly, or even more slowly than usual, for Harry. “I guess, you know, to have all this. I mean, it doesn’t come free, does it? Had to lose something along the way.”

Niall frowns. “What are you on about?”

“Like, I dunno,” Harry bites his lip. “Just, I don’t know.”

“You’re talking like this has to happen,” Niall says, more sharply than he means to. “It’s shite.”

Harry spreads his hands over the cement barrier. He’s taken to wearing rings and they make his hands look bigger and older than Harry’s nineteen years. “Sorry,” he says lowly.

It’s shite, Niall thinks, remembering Greg complaining about their parents when he was just a lad. Remembering Maura or Bobby telling their kids to go outside and play together and Greg snapping at Niall to stop following him around, to leave him alone. “He’s not going to, like. Louis wouldn’t leave you,” Niall offers. It sounds so weak, even to his own ears. Like a consolation prize. Sorry you’re losing one of your best friends, have a pint on me!

Harry just looks at Niall, and Niall can feel the tips of his ears warming up. He shuffles a little uncomfortably, his bad knee twinging. “What?” he demands.

“Nothing, just. That’s what Louis said about you,” Harry answers tentatively.

“Huh?” Niall asks intelligently.

“Just that, like.” Harry toes at the ground, his expensive Chelsea boots a little pitiful they’re so tattered, but they’re so Harry, too. “When I, like. Because, I don’t know. It could happen to any of us, right? Just, with the fans, and the way they are…and the way I am…”

Niall remembers Harry wandering around the X-Factor house nude, jokingly going around to each of them for a make-up kiss after the band’s first proper squabble, welcoming them to Robin’s bungalow by insisting that they camp out together on the floor of the living room at least once, like a proper band. Niall remembers laying awake long after even Liam fell asleep, listening to the four other boys’ breathing. Felt like winning the X-Factor was possible, right then, for the first time. Like maybe it wouldn’t matter if they won at all, now that he had this.

Niall swallows. “Well, Louis’s right. It doesn’t mean anything, I know that. Anyway, not bothered by much at all, am I?” he asks, even though he knows that Harry’s well aware how not true that is.

“Yeah?” Harry asks anyway, his eyes on Niall now.

Niall thinks of the lad with bouncy curls who tripped up to him before they were even made into a band requesting Niall play “Rocket Man” on the guitar he brought to the X-Factor studios. Just a boy, really. They’re all still kids.

“Promise,” he swears. 

It’s that promise he remembers every time Harry leans in a little too close during the Jagger dance or jokes about doing Niall to an audience of forty thousand people. _It doesn’t mean anything_. Funny how Louis couldn’t convince people that that was true, and Niall just wishes that it weren’t. 


	43. up at lover's lane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tmwy verse makeout point mishap, set somewhere between rehearsals and the first moonlights gigs.

“If I’d known this is what you meant by ‘let’s take a drive,’ I would’ve preferred a bigger car,” Niall comments, his voice thick with amusement.

Harry finally gets his sweatshirt over his big head, dropping it on the floorboards with a soft sound. He’s left in just a t-shirt, his skin erupting into gooseflesh. The Audi’s heaters are set to low but Harry’s too precipitously balanced with his knees on either side of Niall’s hips to try and lean over and turn it up. It’s better this way, anyway, he thinks, leaning down to kiss Niall softly. They’ve done it lots of ways but Harry has a soft spot for the slow lead-in, and it suits what they’re up to tonight.

Harry scoffs, “As if,” spreading his fingers over Niall’s sides, fitting his fingers along the hollows of his ribs. He can’t quite feel them through Niall’s thick flannel shirt, but he’s still warm, and he smells enchantingly of Harry’s cleaning product, his own cologne, and the dog. “Only so many ways a screening of Pleasantville can go, to be honest,” Harry murmurs, and Niall snorts out a laugh, his chest jumping.

“Not with you, there isn’t,” he says dryly. Harry can feel the words rumbling in his chest with his palm over Niall’s sternum, and he slips his thumb into the space between the buttons of Niall’s shirt, teasing at his skin. Niall grabs the collar of Harry’s shirt and pulls him up a bit, so that he’s settled over Niall’s hips. So that he’s sat on his dick, basically. Harry’s glad he doesn’t blush like Niall, because a wave of warmth washes over him from the top of his head to his toes.

He ducks his head and mouths at the gaps between Niall’s buttons. If there was such a thing as a game of identifying someone by the randomest bits of their person, Harry would totally win. He slips his tongue out and gets a bit of Niall’s chest, the side of one rib, the muscles in his abs. Niall makes a strangled sound when Harry tongues his belly button.

“I’ll be Reese Witherspoon’s character,” Harry says, pulling himself up again. Niall’s cheeks are so pink, and his eyes are so blue. “You can be the affable yet inexperienced bloke who dared to ask me out.”

Niall laughs out loud. “Please. You’re hardly my first.”

Harry can’t help the face he makes, like he’s bit into a lemon. “I always knew there was something off about you and Liam.”

Niall pushes at Harry like he’s going to shove him off. Like there’s anywhere to go in the tiniest backseat in the world. “‘Well, you know, Mom, there are other ways to enjoy yourself…without Dad,’” he mimics Reese Witherspoon’s character. “Oh, my God, you’re not – I wasn’t even trying to dirty talk,” Niall groans, when Harry stops to think about Niall getting off in front of him.

“We should film that,” Harry says.

“Haven’t you got enough stuff in your wank bank?” Niall asks, tilting his head to give Harry better access that spot at the base of his throat. Harry bites at the tendon jutting out and Niall huffs, his hips surging up off the backseat of Harry’s too-small sportscar.

Harry puts on his best interpretation of an American accent, “‘I did the slut thing, David. It got kinda old.’”

“You fucking – ” Niall bursts out laughing. Harry loves watching him laugh but it’s even better to be laid over him, feeling the way his breathing changes and his stomach jumps. He buries his fingers in Niall’s hair and kisses him hard, too hard, sometimes, he thinks, Niall’s lips sore well into the next day. It doesn’t seem to bother Niall any, if the way he grinds his hips up into Harry’s arse is any indication.

They’ve not talked about it yet, but Harry’s working up the nerve. He grinds back down on Niall experimentally and Niall groans, the blush spreading further down his neck. “Do that again,” Niall pants, so Harry does. It’s like watching the best Christmas present ever being unwrapped right in front of him, Niall getting off on just grinding against Harry’s arse like they’re teenagers. It’s possibly the hottest thing Harry’s ever seen, and he can feel the orgasm building in the pit of his stomach like a train barreling down the tracks.

And then someone knocks on the window. Harry yelps and hits the ceiling of the car, and he comes down heavily on Niall’s legs. Niall makes a muffled sound, squirming to get his bad knee out from under Harry, his jaw clenched with the effort of not screaming.

A flashlight shines through the steamed-up windows, and Harry freezes, his head aching from its collision with the roof. “Open up, LA P.D.,” an American voice says.

So Harry reaches over and unlocks the car door. The flashlight beam shines directly into Harry’s eyes, and he squints at the blurry shape of an officer. The image resolves and Harry can make out his unimpressed expression. Niall’s still quiet, his whole body taut as the string of a bow and arrow. “Hi,” Harry drawls.

“What are you kids doing out here tonight?”

“Just…” Harry touches Niall’s head protectively. “You know.”

The officer narrows his eyes. “Is he alright?”

“I don’t – ” Harry starts, more than a little worried, and Niall says, “Yeah, yeah, totally fine,” his voice hoarse. “We’ll clear out right away, sorry.”

“Just making sure you were here by choice,” the officer tells them. “You guys have a nice night, now.” He closes the door and steps back, but Harry can still see the flashlight beam through the window, so he climbs into the driver’s seat and turns the engine over. It idles with a purr.

Harry glances at Niall, who’s just now sitting up in the backseat, a harangued expression on his face. “You sure you’re alright?” he asks, biting his lip.

“Fine,” Niall says tightly.

He’s not fine. Not for the rest of the night, not when the dog jumps onto the bed and wakes them up the next morning. Niall holds the pup back at arm’s length, his face beaded with sweat. “I’m fine,” he insists, when he catches Harry looking. “It’s nothing, it’ll pass.”

“At least let me get you some ice,” Harry pleads. “Some paracetamol. A shot of Jack.” He slides out of bed, taking the dog with him.

Niall tips his head back against the pillow. “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

Harry spends the day making sure Niall’s ice pack is cold, bringing him things to do or random bits and bobs from around the house – a Teen Award, an empty mug, a duck figurine Harry bought last week at an antique store – without really knowing why, just needing something to do.

“You should go to hospital,” Harry decides, when the sun’s already begun to set and Niall’s hardly moved all day, just to change the channel when his team started losing the match.

Niall breathes out of his nose. Slowly, deliberately. The muscle in his jaw works, and he speaks through clenched teeth. “Harry. I’m not about to tell a bunch of doctors and nurses that my boyfriend broke my dodgy leg, I’ll just…” He shudders. “It’ll pass.”

“We’ll pin it on the dog,” Harry offers. Sorry, doggie. “He won’t argue, he’s a dog. It’ll be our secret.”

Almost smiling, Niall says, “I just need to sleep it off, it’ll be fine, Haz.”

Harry waits thirty minutes, decides he can’t wait anymore, takes Niall a roll of paper towels and tells him he’ll just be a minute, and calls Louis.

“What do you want?” Louis sighs. Usually if Harry’s going to pick him up for rehearsal, he’ll just show up. Louis can’t claim that he’s busy and Harry gets to help dress Louis’s itty bitty babies. It’s a win-win.

“I need you to come over,” Harry says, low into the receiver. Niall’s pretty much bed-bound to one room and Harry’s halfway across the house, toeing at the kitchen floor, but he doesn’t want Niall to overhear. “It’s Niall, I…he needs some help.”

Louis goes from disinterested to concerned in a flat second. “I’ll be right over. Wait, the kids. Give me twenty minutes.”

“Okay,” Harry agrees. He can’t help but add, “Hurry, please,” before Louis hangs up and Harry’s left wondering if he accidentally crippled his best friend while trying to reenact a scene from Pleasantville.

Louis shows up at Harry’s door with the double baby backpack on, the one where he’s got Belle peeping over his shoulder and Freddie drooling down the front of Louis’s shirt. Harry’s heart swells enormously. “Louis, you’re so – ”

“Stop mooning,” Louis says, pushing Harry out of the way. “And yes, I’ll let you try it on later. Where’s Niall?” Harry leads him toward the bedroom. “Wait, I’m not about to find him handcuffed to the headboard, am I?”

“No,” Harry says, and files that idea away for later. That brilliant, brilliant idea. “He, uh. I.”

Taking a deep breath, Louis pushes the door open.

“Fucking hell,” Niall curses weakly.

Louis bustles over to his bedside and checks Niall’s temperature. “Wait,” Louis says, stopping again. He looks at Harry. “This isn’t, like…” He glances down at Niall’s lap. “Because I don’t want to see that. Not that I don’t love you, Nialler, but.” Louis grimaces.

“No, it’s his knee. I might’ve – I kinda – we were watching Pleasantville,” Harry starts, and Niall cuts him off, his voice a little high and sharp.

“He doesn’t need the full story, don’t tell him that.”

Louis’s already nodding knowingly. “Ah,” he says. “A sex mishap. Let me see your knee.” Harry watches Louis twitch back the duvet and sheets to examine Niall’s knee and it’s such a familiar sight. For a split second, they’re several years younger and Niall’s not even had the surgery yet, and Louis’s still dealing with the guilt from accidentally dislocating Niall’s knee during a footie scrimmage. He might still be dealing with it, Harry observes, as Louis ever so lightly touches Niall’s skin.

“Mmph,” Niall lets out a strangled sound. “For fuck’s sake, Lou.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Louis takes his hands away. “I don’t think it’s anything major. You’ll be alright, champ,” he claps his hand on Niall’s shoulder. “Just have to wait. That knee’s not what it used to be, you know. Have to be gentle with it.”

“I am,” Niall grumbles. “I will.”

Harry follows Louis out of his bedroom, Niall shaking hands with Belle as Louis turns away. “You have to be careful with him, too,” Louis chastises him. “He’s tough, not unbreakable.”

“I know,” Harry says. There must be something about his face, because Louis just looks at him. “I mean, I do know. I’ve been – he, when we were talking about it,” Harry starts. Louis’s still just staring at him, so Harry takes a deep breath and gets to the point. “Called me his boyfriend.”

Louis arches one eyebrow. “Kind of figured that’s what was going on, what with you two shacking up together.”

“Well, but. I dunno.” Harry pinches his lip. “He’s never said that before, ‘s all.”

Even though Louis always pretends to be a hardass, his face goes soft as jello. “Ah. You did the right thing, you know. Calling me.”

“Yeah?” Harry asks.

“I mean, mental trauma of imagining you two shagging aside, yeah,” Louis shrugs.

“Thanks for coming,” Harry says, even though Louis really came for Niall.

Louis ruffles Harry’s hair. “Not a problem. Have a good night.”

“Traitor,” Niall murmurs when Harry slides under the covers next to him. Harry very carefully pulls one of Niall’s arms over and curls Niall’s arm around his shoulders. Niall squeezes him tight, pulling him as close as he can.

Harry can’t smell anything but his own detergent and Niall’s own particular scent on Niall now. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

“Thank you,” Niall sighs. “Next time, though. Gotta bring a bigger car.”

“Actually for next time I was thinking, maybe something with handcuffs – ” Harry starts. Niall groans a little, mostly for show. Kinky bastard, Harry predicts he’ll say. Yeah, but _your_ kinky bastard, Harry will answer.

“Kinky bastard,” Niall says fondly.


	44. flowers in the window

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for the prompt, "i accidentally set your plant on fire and i felt super guilty so i went to the store to buy you another plant but they ran out of the plant that you had and i didn’t know what other kind of plant you liked so i may or may not have bought you enough plants to fill a small greenhouse?" (au)

Niall blows a short, sweet note into his harmonica. It’s like a punctuation mark, like a little exclamatory _“Ha!”_ in the middle of what he’s saying. Louis grins around the joint. “And then what happened?”

Louis takes another hit of the roach and says as nonchalantly as possible, “And then we shagged, of course,” and Niall breaks out in such disbelievingly loud guffaws that Louis frowns. He had his hand out to pass the joint back to Niall, but instead of letting him have it, he takes the last puff himself. “Arsehole,” he mutters, grinning when Niall kicks at Louis’s ankle.

Louis kicks his feet up onto the railing around their little balcony. It’s maybe half a square meter, but Niall’s made it this weird little lush garden, his bright green plants growing rich and color-saturated along the chipped white brick wall even on London’s rainiest, most miserable day. He can’t wait till it gets proper cold and Niall brings the plants inside. It’s like living in a jungle in the middle of London. Last year they used this big flowering bush thing as their Christmas tree. It’s died and Niall’s replanted it from seeds of itself, which is, like, the most hardcore punk thing Louis’s ever heard of.

“Don’t you have to get to work?” Niall asks. Louis checks his watch, but it’s kind of a pointless gesture, because their upstairs neighbor has started his fucking opera routine in the middle of the day. In about five minutes, his roommate will toss something of the singer’s out the window, and the mop-headed fellow will have to pause his routine to trot downstairs and pick it up out of the courtyard.

Sometimes Louis gets down there first. He’s convinced the lad that a ridiculously patterned shirt was actually his, that a frying pan came out of another neighbor’s window, and that a single brown boot was Louis’s dog’s chew toy. Louis hasn’t even got a dog. It’s always a good time, for him, watching the guy’s baby face grow more and more confused.

“Poor sodding fucker,” Louis snorts.

“I think it’s nice,” Niall says, that familiar flush creeping up his neck when Louis gives him a skeptical look.

Louis snorts. “Nice meaning, ‘he’s got a nice arse,’ I expect. You’ve said as much enough times.”

“Fuck off,” Niall says. As comebacks go it’s weak as shit, but Niall pockets his harmonica, ruffles Louis’s hair, and goes inside to change into a black button-down. Maybe Louis will stop by the pub Niall works at tonight, get a few drinks snuck to him for free and chat with Niall in the few spare minutes he has between demanding customers. He likes people-watching, too.

It’s been ages since Louis’s done that, he’s been so busy with night classes, so he hurries back into his and Niall’s dingy little flat four and a half blocks from Niall’s job, Louis’s uni, and the cinema that doesn’t care if they sneak in their own stock of Red Vines, Reese’s Pieces, and Red Bull. Louis’s inordinately attached to the pipe beneath the sink that leaks so they have to remember to swap out those American-size Tesco drink stop cups every other day or they’ll get mildew, and the spider that lives inside his shower, and the upstairs neighbor’s unbearable opera music.

Louis strides into Niall’s room while Niall’s in the toilet and starts poking through his closet for a clean shirt. If he heads into the pub now, he can save himself a seat at the bar before it gets too busy. He can get proper smashed and let Niall carry him home before he’s got to go home and see Ernest and Doris graduate from preschool. Because apparently that’s a thing. Not that he’s cleaned out a gigabyte of storage on his phone for pictures, or anything. That’d be daft.  

“Louis!” Niall calls, sounding upset. Louis hurriedly grabs a shirt out of his closet and ducks out of Niall’s room before he gets caught making a mess again.

“What?” Louis asks, edging along into the kitchen. Niall’s standing in the doorway to their balcony, his face stricken. Louis lets the shirt drop to the floor and rushes over to him, sure he’s had another knee attack or whatever the hell it is where he just about passes out from the pain. He’s got his phone halfway out of his pocket when he sees their balcony garden on fire. “What the fuck!”

Niall’s already coming back from the kitchen with a cup of water. He pours it onto the nearest lush plant. The flames sizzle but keep burning, only now it smells acrid, and their smoke alarm starts going off. “Uh,” Niall says.

“What the fuck!” Louis repeats. “What do we do?”

“I don’t know, my garden’s never caught on fire before, what d’you think we should do?” Niall asks right back, his face growing more and more red.

Without thinking any further, Louis shoves the potted plant over the ledge of the railing. Niall’s face goes curiously blank. “Uh,” he says. He and Louis rush toward the railing at once and peer over the edge. The potter has shattered and spread soil all over the pavement, Niall’s flowering plant like a bit of roadkill in the middle of it all. At least the flames have gone out.

Louis licks his lips. “Well,” he says. “You’re welcome.”

Niall spins on him. “What the hell,” he laughs, his eyes bright and hard. “I’ve told you a million times to put your joint out before you use my garden as an ashtray, you arsehole.”

“I did,” Louis insists. “Niall, this isn’t my fault.”

“Uh huh,” Niall snorts. He finally finishes buttoning his shirt, his boots stomping his path to the front door.

Louis spares one last look down at the plant, shrugs, and catches the door just before Niall slams it shut behind them. “Wait, can I come to work with you?”

Niall just groans.

***

Louis comes back from the weekend at his mum’s house with no storage left on his phone and several Tomlinson originals Ernie and Doris finger-painted for him that he plans to hang on the fridge. He has to jam his key into the door and wiggle the knob a bit to get the key all the way past all the tumblers, and then he’s in.

As usual, Niall’s taken advantage of Louis being away by cleaning the whole apartment. His heap of laundry is finally off the couch and folded neatly on his bed, and the candy wrappers he’s been stuffing down the side of the sofa are all cleaned out. He dumps his bag on his bed, sticks his baby siblings’ art to the fridge, and pokes his head out to the balcony.

“Right,” Louis says. “What’s this, then?”

There’s a new flowering bush thing sat on the edge of the railing, and something fronds-y looking hanging from the rusty hook from the overhang, and a little blue flower vase sat on the tiny table between the two plastic outdoor chairs.

Niall looks round and grins, so Louis exiles himself from the warmth of their apartment to sit beside Niall. He’s got half a fag left, but he passes it over to let Louis have a hit when Louis makes a whining sound and grabs for it. “Like you don’t know,” Niall snorts. “Who’d you get to do this, then, Liam? Did you really even go away?”

“Uh,” Louis says. “Normally I’d accept any insinuation that I know everything, but I proper don’t know what you’re on about, Niall.”

Niall shoots him a disbelieving look. “Like you’ve not got one of your mates to leave a plant on our stoop every day since you set my geraniums on fire.”

“Geraniums,” Louis repeats. “Are you sure that’s a real word?”

“You could just say sorry, like a normal human being,” Niall smiles, his voice soft.

Louis immediately wants to apologize and confess. It takes him a moment to remember he’s actually not done this one. “It wasn’t me, Nialler.”

“Okay,” Niall just says. He stretches his skinny legs out to prop his feet up on the railing, bringing his harmonica to his lips with fingerless gloves on his hands. Upstairs, their neighbor breaks into song. Niall plays along to it, humming through the harmonica, making their shoddy little flat in the middle of London feel more like home than the house Louis grew up in. “So, how was your weekend?” Niall asks, so Louis launches into a rundown of every adorable thing any one of his siblings done. 

***

Louis’s got ten minutes to make it the four and half blocks to class. He curses himself out while he shoves his foot into an Adidas trainer. He can’t find the match, so he just grabs a Nike for his other foot. What-fucking-ever, it’s uni, right? He throws his bag over his shoulder, shoves his arms through the sleeves of his coat on top of that so that it looks like he’s got a marvelous hunchback, and flings open the door.

And there’s a bloke there. Louis would swear he doesn’t let out a peep, but one of them certainly squeaks unimpressively. Alright, it’s maybe him.

The bloke takes a step back, his eyes wide. He puts one giant hand on Louis’s shoulder soothingly, and Louis recognizes those green eyes and the froggy face. “Opera lad,” he says.

“The guy with the dog,” the guy drawls. “I know you haven’t got a dog, you know. My flatmate asked about the pet policy.”

“Right,” Louis says, folding his arms across his chest, cocking his hip out a bit. “Okay, and what are you doing on my doorstep, then, Pavarotti?”

The guy ducks his head, letting his hair fall over his face, and Louis looks down to find a brand new potter sat on his faded doormat. A grin spreads uncontrollably over Louis’s face. “I see how it is.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the guy says, nervously pushing his hair back.

“Not that the Valentine act isn’t charming and all,” Louis laughs, turning to lock the door. “But you could just ask him out. Wait,” he adds, turning to find the guy trying to edge down the hall, away from him. “I knew it wasn’t me,” he says, getting louder by the word. “I knew I put out the joint before I stuck it in the planter – er, not that I do that,” Louis glares.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the repeats, his eyes going twitchy.

“Listen, I’m already late for class, and I’m pretty sure the professor hates me, so I don’t have time to properly make you suffer,” Louis says. “You’ve got to tell Niall that you set the balcony on fire so I can have the satisfaction of saying ‘I told you so.’” He strides down the hall and impatiently jabs the button for the elevator. It takes too long and half the time it get stuck between floors so you have to jam the doors open and climb out, so he turns for the stairs instead.

The guy trots along behind him. “I can’t tell him it was me!” he says.

“Listen, hairy,” Louis starts, stepping out into that massively uncomfortable sharp wet sleet that always seems to aim straight for his eyeballs, and the guy cuts him off.

“How’d you know my name was Harry?” he asks, jamming his hands in his pockets. His shoulders hunch against the cold, and he looks kind of like he’d done a bit of wandering in the 1990s and gotten stuck there, but also soft. Louis can see how he and Niall would fit together. He sighs to himself.

Louis raises one eyebrow. “I didn’t. Your name’s Harry?” Harry nods, clenching his teeth against the wind. “Well, Harry,” Louis says, “I’m certainly not going to let him go on thinking it was me what set our balcony on fire, so you’d better think of something.”

“I am,” Harry protests, bumping shoulders with Louis when Louis sidesteps quick to avoid the hobo with the rotten teeth. Harry drops a bit of pocket change into his cup. “What do you think I’ve been doing?”

“Uh, filling our flat with plants,” Louis says. “Not that it’s not nice but I literally can’t walk to the loo without tripping over one or another of them, and I wake up at least once a night for a piss.”

Harry snuffles out a laugh. “I didn’t need to know that.”

“Well, I don’t need the blame for your crime,” Louis says. “What are you going to do instead? Flush Niall out of our flat and catch him on his way to the homeless shelter because he’s given up all our living space to your guilt-gifts?” Louis draws to a stop at a crosswalk, raising an eyebrow at Harry.

Harry hesitates. “Um,” he starts. “I was more thinking, I’d stop when I knew I’d replaced what I broke. Then I could, like, introducer myself proper, like.” He has this shy little smile turning up the corners of his mouth, dimples popping into existence, and mentally, Louis starts rolling his eyes for the next, oh, twenty years.  

“And how are you going to do that?” Louis asks. “How’d you set the fucking plant on fire in the first place?”

“My mate Zayn might’ve thrown one of my candles out the window,” Harry sniffs.

“Who can blame him,” Louis mutters, hurrying across the street with the rest of the pedestrians. He might be only fifteen minutes late to this class. That’s practically a record.

“Yeah, so. I figured, like, I dunno. I went to the grocer’s and got one of every kind they had and I’ve just been giving them over one at a time so they don’t block the hallway or anything, but I’m having the hardest time remembering to water them, and some need more sunlight than others, so – ”

Louis puts his hand on the door to his school. He puts his other hand on Harry’s chest when Harry tries to follow him in. “You stay, I go,” he says. “And for the love of God, I don’t care about the plants. I just want them out of my way when I go for my two a.m. wee.”

“Okay, but,” Harry drawls, “have I replaced the one I set on fire yet?”

“I can’t believe this is a conversation I’m having in real life,” Louis thinks aloud. He comes back to himself with a shake of his head. “I’ll ask Niall, okay? And get back to you. But no more until we talk.”

Harry perks up immediately. He flashes a fairly goofy smile, his two front teeth slightly bigger than the rest. Louis resigns himself to hearing Niall talk about that for the next forever, probably. “Yeah, whatever,” Louis mumbles, and Harry pulls him into a tight, cold hug. “Go home,” Louis orders him. Harry smiles again and Louis can’t be blamed for smiling back; the guy’s like a puppy.

His professor is, indeed, impressed he’s only fifteen minutes late today. She still docks his coursework another half-letter grade, and Louis slumps in his seat, scowling.

*** 

Niall gets home from work at half past two, his coat layered in ice. His cheeks are very pink, and Louis hands him a cup of hot tea before he even lets Niall ask him how his day was. “Thanks, mate,” Niall says, his teeth chattering.

“Yeah, yeah,” Louis says, watching Niall beat the ice off his coat just out the balcony doors. He goes into his room and hangs it up on a hanger and sticks it in his closet, and then he deposits his boots beside the door. “What?” Niall asks.

“Did you know you’re very neurotic?” Louis asks. “Wait, that wasn’t the question I meant to ask. That plant that caught fire – ”

“That you pushed to its death like a murderer,” Niall mutters, sinking onto the couch beside Louis, propping his head up on his hand. “You mean that one?”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Yes, that one. Have you gotten it back, yet?”

“I’ve told you, they were geraniums,” Niall says, fiddling with a piece of hair above his ear. Louis hears himself ask, _Geranium, are you sure that’s a real word?_ And he cringes. “Why d’you ask?”

“Just wondering,” Louis shrugs. Niall gives him a disbelieving look and flips on the TV, tuning them to the golf channel.

“Found out the plant,” Louis says the next day, when he’s back from class. “What’s that smell?”

Harry steps aside to let Louis in when Louis steps too close to him. “Um, cookies. Do you want some?”

“What kind are they? They aren’t that awful one with the bits of flakes in them, are they?”

Harry scratches his head. “You mean oatmeal? No, they’re chocolate chip.” Louis spares a glance at Harry’s apartment, which is laid out exactly like his and Niall’s, except Harry’s flat looks like a Fleetwood Mac album cover threw up all over his walls, and he’s got fancy-looking canvas paintings hung up on his walls, and his furniture doesn’t look like a dog or an ambitious two year-old’s been gnawing on it, like Louis’s. Louis snags a cookie from the top of an artful pile on a white China plate and bites into it. It’s soft and warm from the oven and Louis groans, already reaching for his second.

Harry slaps his hand away. “Have you eaten dinner yet?” he asks sternly, like Louis’s mum.

“Do you want to know what kind of plant it was, or what?” Louis asks, watching with satisfaction as Harry draws his hand back and allows Louis free reign over the tray.

“That’s blackmail,” Harry observes, leaning his hip against the counter. “I don’t think you’d really not tell me.”

Louis sneers, “Wanna try me?” even though he is secretly pleased. Maybe. Not that he’d tell his Play-Doh faced kid that. “So, yeah. They were geraniums.”

“What’s a geranium?” Harry asks, going over to his laptop, which is open on the counter. He’s got the recipe for something else pulled up, and Louis gives the kitchen a second look. He’s got these aluminum canisters labeled flour, sugar, and salt, and all sorts of other stuff spread out on his counter, like he’s the star of his own cooking show. “What color was it?” Harry follows up with, spinning the screen to show Louis.

Louis tries to remember. “Right,” he says. “So it was either purple or red.”

“That’s – those are literally the only options we’ve got, Louis,” Harry whines. Louis just shrugs. Harry closes his laptop with a snap. “Well, you can come to the florist’s with me this time,” he decides.

“Uh,” Louis complains through a mouthful of cookie, “no, thank you.”

“Maybe you’ll recognize it when we get there,” Harry suggests. “And I’m on a student budget, I really can’t afford any more of these. Please?”

Louis groans. “Fine. But put these in a doggy bag, we’re taking them with us.”

Louis has the bag of cookies clutched to his chest while Harry stares at him with those too-wide green eyes. “What?” Louis snaps. “Don’t look at me like I’ve just kicked your puppy, I didn’t set my mate’s plant on fire, did I?”

“This is your fault,” Harry insists.

“So they’re out of stock,” Louis says, trying to find a positive spin to put on it. “Go to another shop.”

Harry looks like he might cry. “They’re all closed now.”

“So go tomorrow,” Louis says logically.

Harry bites his lip. “Just, I’ve run out of, like, the ones I had before, and I dunno, I just thought it would be nice to, like, finish, you know, one every day, with the right one.”

To be honest, Louis zoned out about halfway through his sentence and tuned back in time for another pause in Harry’s very slow speech, but still. It’s kind of sweet. In a ridiculous kind of way. Kind of sweet.

“Fine,” Louis says. “Here’s what you do.” 

*** 

Harry makes Louis stay upstairs in his flat for his grand romantic gesture, so of course Louis sneaks downstairs the moment the door closes and peeks around the corner to listen in. Someone’s going to have to be able to tell this story at their stupid soppy wedding, Louis reasons.

Harry knocks on the door, and Niall opens it with his mouth full, of course, wearing his tattered Derby jersey for game night. “Um,” Harry starts, and Louis mentally groans. He wishes he brought a chair; if Harry has more than three sentences to say they’re going to be here all night. Luckily, Harry just thrusts the mason jar at Niall. “Here, I got you a pot.”

“Uh, thanks,” Niall says, nonplussed. He’s smiling a little. “Are you sure you’re not looking for my mate Louis?”

“I’m really sorry I set your balcony on fire, it was an incident with a scented candle. Will you go out with me sometime?” Harry asks. He frowns. “Wait, you weren’t – hold on, what was your question?”

Niall leans against the doorjamb. “Do you have a bit planned?” he asks. “Go ahead, we can start over.”

“Well, I _did_ ,” Harry whines. He and Niall have both started smiling so hard Louis kind of wants to bash his head against the wall. He settles for cramming another cookie into his mouth, instead. “You’ve scuttled it.”

“Sorry,” Niall smiles. “What’s this?” he asks, raising the jar in his hand.

“It’s a geranium,” Harry says. “Or, like, it will be. They’d run out and all they had left was seeds, so. I can help you, if you want. I got kind of attached to some of the plants,” he admits. “This was supposed to be, like, romantic.”

There’s a faint blush climbing up to Niall’s cheeks. “It is,” he says softly. “Do you want to come in?”

“Really?” Harry asks.

Niall steps back, holding the door wide open. “Yeah, can visit the rest of ‘em,” Niall says, clutching the mason jar a little tighter.

“Ugh,” Louis rolls his eyes. He lets himself listen to Niall’s and Harry’s soft warm voices move away from the door. Then he goes back upstairs and helps himself to the leftover meatloaf and strawberry shortcake in Harry’s fridge. He’ll save his “I told you so” for tomorrow.


	45. 'cause i can't lose now, there's no game to play

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a boston uni au, this one not part of my big bang verse. this can't be only the third date, can it?

Harry raises a bottle of wine to Niall at the liquor store, raising one eyebrow. “No?”

“It’s a football-watching party, Haz,” Niall laughs, reviewing the store’s selection of beer. The other lads like Heineken, but he’d rather Guinness, and Harry only drinks Stella. Niall decides on the Stella, bending down and heaving the twenty-four pack up into his arms.

“Wine’s good for football,” Harry objects mildly, his face going a little green when they pass the tequila bottles. Niall remembers the last time Harry got his eyes, and hands, and mouth, on a liquor bottle, and gives him a little nudge to speed him on. That’s a night neither one of them need to relive too vividly. “It’s like an elegant juice. Like the Yves Saint Laurent of Gatorade.”

Niall sets the case on the counter and slides his wallet out of his back pocket to pay. “That was the biggest load of nonsense I’ve ever heard, and I’ve listened to you try and retell the plot of a Futurama episode.”

Harry huffs, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. The cashier rings them up, Niall swipes his debit card, and they start the half-mile walk to the Fenway bus stop. Niall can picture Comm Ave just across the Turnpike, the trees weeping red and gold leaves onto the sidewalks under buttery sunlight. There’s probably more than a few undergrads cramming for midterms under the branches, and more than that in Mugar.

He’ll have to spend some time there himself tomorrow, but he’s studying most Sundays. Well, at Mugar or at the astronomy library. Harry’s not seen that yet, his favorite study nook or the little absent-minded carving of his initials he’d done on the wooden study carrel so that he knows it’s that special one, even if someday BU rearranges the library. Like marking out a single atom for research.

Harry fumbles in his skinny jeans for his bus pass, so Niall stands by and mutely accepts Harry’s wallet, a pair of headphones, a crumpled dollar bill, a used tissue, and a dryer sheet before Harry finally unearths his bus pass. Harry takes it all back and somehow manages to fit it into his Mary Poppins pants, and they take the Green Line to Eoghan’s apartment.

There’s only one seat open, so Harry plops down and takes the case of beer onto his lap. Niall holds onto the pole stretching from the seatback to the ceiling of the bus. Harry pinches his bum to get his attention, and Niall looks round. Harry smiles up at him. “Shouldn’t I be nervous about meeting your friends for the first time, not you? Are you afraid I’m going to embarrass you?” The “again” goes unspoken, even though Niall wants to tell Harry he’s got nothing to be ashamed of. Harry was doomed the moment he accepted an invitation to a drinking contest with the Boston Irish.

“I’m not nervous,” Niall reassures him. “Are you nervous?”

“Eh,” Harry shrugs, so Niall wraps his hand around the back of Harry’s neck and gives it a little squeeze. Harry’s shoulders drop, and he leans into Niall’s hand like a cat. Niall can almost hear him purr.

“Okay,” Niall’s saying as they climb the steps to buzz up to Eoghan’s apartment, “and if they ask who’s playing, you say – ”

Harry presses his finger to the button. “The Patriots, Niall, I know.”

“And who are they playing against?” Niall prompts him.

Harry hesitates. “Eh,” he says, “the Colts?”

“Close enough,” Niall mumbles, Eoghan buzzing them in. Niall hefts the beer under his arm. The edge of the crate cuts into his hip a bit, but it’s nice to have something to focus on. He’s been feeling like everything’s too easy lately. Senior year should be, like, a nightmare, right? Or scary, at least. All of Niall’s mates have been going on about what are they going to do after they graduate, and Niall, well. Niall watches Harry strike up a conversation with the tiny Chinese woman next to him on the bus, his hands gesticulating wildly in a way that has the woman leaning back a bit to avoid getting poked in the face, and. He sort of feels like he already knows.

“Niall!” Eoghan greets them. His eyes move down to the beer under Niall’s arm. “NIALLER! GET IN HERE!” Eoghan roars, his eyes alight. Harry shoots Niall a look, and Niall shrugs apologetically. Eoghan throws an arm around Niall’s and Harry’s shoulders each and drags them through his packed apartment. “Have some chips, have a drink, the party’s just about to start!”

There’s all of eight chips left in the two bowls Eoghan’s girlfriend put out in the kitchen, so Niall sets the box of beer down and tears it open. Harry accepts one and Niall pries the cap off with his teeth, even if it drives his mom crazy. “Stop that,” Harry says softly, pinching the back of Niall’s hand. “You’re going to ruin that pretty smile.”

Niall just bares his teeth at him, and Harry laughs, and they go to find a place to watch the game in Eoghan’s apartment. They wind up on the floor, Harry sprawled between Niall’s legs, his head lolling against Niall’s chest. The Patriots fumble the ball on the first down and Harry says, loud enough for anyone to hear, “This wouldn’t have happened at a Packers game, just sayin’,” before Niall claps a hand over his mouth. Harry licks his palm and Niall jerks it away, Harry laughing all the while.

To his credit, Harry _did_ come, even though he’s got at least as much homework as Niall’s got tomorrow, and he stayed up half the night before to get half of it done. But Harry nods off somewhere between the second quarter and the third, jerking awake anytime the Patriots score and the room erupts in wild applause. Normally, Niall’s all over stuff like this, climbing on the back of the couch and falling off and breaking his foot. Somehow it’s not a burden to sit very still so that Harry can nap on him.

“Did we win?” Harry asks blearily when the clock’s only got four minutes left and everybody’s already started drinking themselves into forgetful oblivion. Niall helps him stumble to his feet, getting a whiff of Harry in the midst of beer and Eoghan’s overwhelming cologne and the pizzas they ordered at halftime. He smells a little bit like sweat and lotion and the fresh linen-scented dryer sheets he carries around in his pockets to “keep it fresh, Niall.”

Niall loops his arm around his waist. “Yeah, yeah, buddy. Come on, let’s get you home.”

Harry makes a little sound of protest, so Niall takes him over to Eoghan to shake his hand goodbye. Eoghan hands him an empty beer can and rubs at his red eyes with the balls of his fists like a child. It makes Niall smile. Some things never change.

The walk back to the bus station is slow and meandering, but lots of things are, with Harry. He stops to put garbage in trash bins and if a child smiles back at him, then of course he has to introduce himself. “I want kids,” Harry tells Niall while they wait for their bus to come in on what is maybe their fourth date. “Like, Brad Pitt-style, a baseball team,” he adds, the bus coming to a stop in front of them, its brakes squeaking.

It should probably send alarm bells ringing in Niall’s head, but he’s too busy trying to figure out if this is only their fourth date. Maybe. They met up for coffee and went to check out Niall’s mate’s band, whose entire set was a forty-eight minute tribute to his latest failed relationship, and then there was that time they were at the park, but that’s because Sean and Harry’s friend Louis and a bunch of others were there for a game of flag football, so is that really a date? And that time Niall thought, disastrously, that Harry might like to come along to pub night after class on Friday, and he didn’t stop puking until Sunday morning.

Harry tucks his face into Niall’s neck like he’s still dozing on the ride back, Niall’s arm secure around him as they sway with the bus’s turns. Niall can still smell that Harry-smell even over the usual mixture of sweat, piss, and fried food that a late-night bus ride entails.

Fenway Park is all lit up tonight – maybe there’s a league game going on, Niall should look into getting in some night – but Harry and Niall turn away, toward Harry’s brownstone apartment on Beacon Street. It’s a nice place, but that’s not why Niall likes it, he thinks, as he looks around, Harry shuffling his shoes off his feet beside the door.

Harry’s not a slob but he’s not as neat as Niall, either, so his counter’s got a couple of empty water glasses on it, and his fridge has band fliers and grades that he’s particularly proud of, and he’s got not two but three throw blankets draped over the back of his couch for easy access. Apparently Harry gets sick a lot. Niall’s not yet seen that in action, but he’s started taking vitamin C supplements just to be prepared. Harry flips the light above the stove on and pulls a bottle of water out of the fridge, offering one to Niall. Niall shakes his head.

Harry takes a swig and presses the bottle into Niall’s hand anyway, stealing a kiss on the side of Niall’s head as he goes by. “I’m going to iron my shirts, want me to do yours, too?”

Niall brought along a shirt to wear to work tomorrow, crumpled up at the bottom of his messenger bag when he was running out of his apartment this morning. The black fabric won’t show much in the dim lights of a bar, and they’re not likely to be busy on a Sunday, but. Niall’s already an Irish bartender in Boston, he doesn’t need to be a slob, to boot. And Harry’s offered.

He moves over to the sink and washes the remains of Harry’s hummus-and-turkey wrap off his cheap IKEA plates, and his little clutch of mugs, and the bowl with dried muesli stuck to the inside. Niall dries his hands on the washcloth sat on the counter and drapes it over the oven handle to dry.

By the time Niall makes it back to Harry’s bedroom, Harry’s already under the covers. Harry’s collection of wildly printed shirts is hung up in his closet, and Niall’s shirt hangs from the door, ready for tomorrow. Niall kicks his shoes off and struggles out of his jeans. Harry’s got a book open in front of him like he’s reading, but Niall notices that his eyes aren’t moving at all. Niall smirks, and Harry grins, caught out. He shrugs and turns the page, sinking that much lower in bed.

In the bathroom, Niall scrubs his face, his skin already paler than it was last month and pinked up from the cold water. He meticulously brushes his teeth, and when he’s done, he puts the brush back into Harry’s decorative toothbrush-holder without thinking about it.

He shuts the water off, flips the bathroom light off, and closes the door behind him. Harry’s shower’s been dripping and Niall keeps forgetting to bring his wrench when he comes over. He knee-walks up the bed and stretches out on top of Harry, who rearranges a veritable mountain of blankets on top of them. Niall always wakes up in a sweat whenever he stays over at Harry’s, but. ‘S been worth it, so far.

Harry spreads his knees and pulls Niall in closer, his thumbs stroking Niall’s cheeks as Niall leans in and kisses him. Harry hums into the kiss. “I’m guessing I didn’t embarrass you, then?” Niall snorts and shakes his head, kissing the dimple beside Harry’s mouth. “Sorry I fell asleep. Didn’t mean to.”

“Wasn’t exactly your sort of thing,” Niall shrugs. “Eoghan might even let you take him to a Packers game, if the Patriots keep going like they are.”

“Something to look forward to,” Harry smiles, curving his hand around Niall’s cheek, pressing his fingertips into the back of his neck. Niall kisses him deeper, and it’s so slow and easy, the way Harry kind of melts against him. He lets out a high-pitched little sound when Niall reaches down and hitches Harry’s knee up around his hip and weaves his fingers through Niall’s hair, holding him close.

Niall’s still not used to that, the way Harry always tries to get closer to him, like he wants to settle inside Niall’s skin, or absorb him somehow, morph them into one person. It makes him go still for a second, and Harry pulls back, his dark hair fanning out on the pillow.

“Told my mom about you last time I went home,” Harry says in a rush, like it’s a confession. Niall had dropped him off at the Amtrak station, and Harry texted him nonstop all weekend. Harry’s thumbs stroke that spot behind Niall’s ears that makes it almost impossible to keep his eyes open.

Niall blinks at him. “Yeah?” he asks, trying to think. “You don’t think it’s too soon?”

Harry just shrugs. “Do you?”

“Not really,” Niall answers.

“Me, neither,” Harry agrees, and pulls him back down.

*** 

Niall’s eyes flutter open the next morning. The room is still dark, but he can hear Harry moving around, his steps soft and sure. He must be on his way to yoga in the park, and Niall thinks about saying goodbye, but he’s too comfy on Harry’s soft mattress to move.

“Yeah,” Harry says quietly, his voice especially slow, like it does when he’s on the phone. “We’re both really busy, but I’ll ask. Maybe next month, around Thanksgiving?” He’s quiet for a moment. “Mom,” he whines. Niall can hear the smile in his voice from where his head’s buried under both a pillow and the duvet. “Yeah,” he says softly. “I really, really like him.”

I really, really like you, too, Niall thinks. Maybe later he’ll tell Harry that; right now, he’s going back to sleep. There’s plenty of time.  


	46. where do broken hearts go (by whitney houston)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> canon compliant narry, set after that concert in houston for the wwa tour where harry tied niall's sneaker, then kissed it.

“Oh, my God, Harry, stop,” Niall groans, pressing both palms to his eyes.

Harry can’t help the manic grin on his face, or the way it gets wider the longer Niall faffs about acting like a little child. “Come on, Nialler, you can handle this.”

“It’s not a matter of ‘can,’” Niall says, narrowing his eyes at Harry. “It’s a matter of whether or not I ‘want’ to watch Breaking Dawn: Part II with you tonight, which I don’t. It’s one o’clock in the mornin’. I want to sleep.”

Harry scoffs. “We’re international superstars, Niall Horan. This is important research in one of our major demographics. And one a.m. is early. Where’d you do your superstar training, with the Wanted lads?” He laughs when Niall socks him on the shoulder, spilling backwards onto the bed so that they’re both laying flat-out.

They haven’t been drinking – actually, Niall had a couple of beers, which hardly counts, with him – but Harry feels like he is. Punch-drunk, maybe, knackered but still going strong. He tries not to think in terms of stuff like that, exhaustion and the like. Like it’s possible to get burnt out on stadiums full of fans screaming their names, and meeting those fans backstage before they’ve even given them a show, and being _thanked_ , like it’s not the fans themselves they owe everything to.

Niall rolls around a bit, plucking the remote out of Harry’s hand and propping himself up on his elbow to scroll through the available channels. The PGA tour has moved on to the Wyndham Championship, so Niall tunes them into that. A golfer puts the ball into the hole and Niall lets out a tiny little subconscious “yes,” his fist clenching momentarily.

Harry casts about for something to say. “Nialler,” he says.

“Yup,” Niall answers, without looking at Harry.

“How about another guitar lesson?” Harry suggests, spotting Niall’s acoustic in the corner.

Niall gives him a skeptical look. “Are you bein’ serious this time, or are you just going to sit ‘n’ quiz me about me sex life?”

“Me?” Harry gasps, putting a hand to his chest. He realizes he’s laying it on a little thick, but. It’s not like Niall’s lying, either. “I would never.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Niall mutters, sliding off the bed and muting the TV. He picks up the guitar by the neck with one hand, and he looks so familiar and at home like this, Harry thinks. In the rolled-up jean shorts he was wearing at the show earlier, his bright red trainers still tied tight on his feet. The guitar’s almost like a third arm, it looks so natural on him.

He passes it over to Harry and Harry holds it the way Niall’s shown him, the bulk of it settled under his left arm, his right hand bent over the strings. Niall drags the desk chair around and pulls it up to the bed so that he can adjust Harry’s hand on the strings. “Gently, Harold,” he snorts, watching Harry stroke them again more lightly this time. “Just your fingertips,” he adds, “cup your hands more. Yeah, like that.”

Harry slowly plucks out the chords to a song he’s been working on. Niall clocks it instantly, of course. “Is that new?” he asks. “Can I hear it?”

“Yeah, sure, I – I’ll just start, shall I?” Harry asks, before he can set himself off rambling for the next ten minutes. Niall will sit through it either way, but he does look tired, with his hair falling over his forehead a bit and his mouth a little firm with sleep, like Maura’s.

Harry quickly discovers how difficult it is to remember lyrics and perform at the same time. “How the hell do you do this?” Harry asks, after Niall’s tapped his foot on Harry’s to remind him that he’s stopped singing again.

“Practice,” Niall shrugs. “How about I play?” He pulls the guitar from Harry’s hands and tucks it familiarly under his arm. “How’s it go?”

“Er, well it starts with these two, and then it goes,” Harry hums helpfully, and Niall’s hands move to the right strings right away. “Yeah, perfect. And then do that for a bit, but I don’t even really have the bridge yet, so if something comes to you,” he laughs. “Ready?”

Harry does have the lyrics successfully memorized. He came up with them with his journal spread over his knees at Jeff’s pool earlier this summer, when he’d been listening to a lot of Fleetwood Mac. He hopes it shows.

When Harry hits the chorus, Niall looks up from the strings, and he looks so chuffed, so pleased, that Harry huffs out a laugh, stumbling over his words until he gets back to the bridge. “Why’d you look at me like that?” he laughs, when the song’s over.

Niall’s just shaking his head. “Just you, you nutter. Never know what you’ll do next, but,” he bites his lip. Harry watches the blood drain from his bottom lip, which is dark and soft-looking. Harry has a Technicolor vision of himself leaning forward and gently biting Niall’s lower lip himself, and then he’s flushing, wondering where that came from. How long it’s been there.

“But it’s good, right?” Harry asks, a little nervously. Louis’d told him the same thing, once, or something similar. “Can’t count on you to do the same thing from one day to another,” he’d said, looking up from under his brows, his mouth a harsh line.

Niall presses his foot down on top of Harry’s gently again. “Yeah, ‘s good,” he says. He bends over the guitar again, humming to himself. “I hear what you mean about the bridge, though, like it needs,” he hums again.

Except, Harry’s kind of figured out what it needs. “How about something, like, kind of raspy. Like your voice, but on a guitar,” and Niall finds the strings, and the song finally sounds right. Harry knows it the moment he hears it, and he can tell Niall does too, by the way his spine straightens up all of a sudden and he starts tapping his foot.

“That’s perfect,” Niall laughs. “I love it. I really love it, Haz,” he adds when Harry’s face lights up like a little kid’s at Christmas. What’re you going to call it?”

“Was thinking of ‘Where Do Broken Hearts Go,’” Harry answers, watching Niall’s face closely.

Niall doesn’t disappoint. He laughs out loud. “Like the Whitney Houston song? Haz. We’re going to get sued,” he laughs.

Harry waggles his eyebrows. “The defendant calls on Mr. Niall Horan, Your Honor,” he pleads, stretching out dramatically across the mattress.

Niall prods Harry with the tip of his sneaker. “The defendant pleads insanity,” he says, and Harry scowls, sitting up with his hair falling out his scarf all over his face.

Swatting Harry’s fingers away from where he’s trying to get them up Niall’s nose again, Niall tips his chin down again, his eyes on his hands. Harry looks at the sweep of his eyelashes over his cheek, and the concentrated purse of his lips, and he wants to –  “I want to kiss you,” Harry blurts.

Niall looks up at him slowly. “Thought you already did that,” Niall says, wiggling his foot a bit. Niall’s face is a little flushed. It was then, too, when Harry had spotted him doing up his laces across the stage. He’s not sure what possessed him to drop to one knee in front of Niall and tie his shoelaces for him, except that he really, really wanted to. Needed to, like, the same way he wrote Niall’s voice into a song. Like he’s another one of Niall’s instruments, or something.

He can still hear the fans’ screams, Liam and Louis and Zayn singing “Little Things” without his or Niall’s help. He can remember the goofy, unself-conscious smile on Niall’s face, looking at him and not being able to think at all, so that Niall had to remind him how to tie some damn shoe laces.

“In fact,” Harry says slowly, “I might be pretty gone for you.” He looks up uncertainly at Niall. The mere accusation that he liked one of his band members didn’t go so well last time. He wonders if the real thing is going any better. “Is that okay?”

“Reckon that’s alright,” Niall says, and kisses him. He tastes like Guinness and the cheeseburger he’d had for dinner from room service, and he’s not shy about kissing Harry like he’s trying to kiss the heart out of him. “But no more grabbing my ass at our shows,” Niall says. “Not if you’re going to be doing it in private.”

Harry shakes his head. “Non-negotiable, Niall.” Niall laughs.


	47. make some vows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> niall and harry are getting married, finally.

There are four emails in Niall’s inbox from his idiot of an intern. He’s a lamb, but he’s not got any sense for what to do without Niall directing him. Next time, he’ll know better than to hire Liam’s cousin out of pity, even if Liam did throw in a case of Stella and two large supreme meat-lover’s pizzas to sweeten the deal. Niall flips through them while he waits for the clerk to call his name, and he fires off quick replies to two or three of the emails. His phone freezes, and Niall swears under his breath, tightening his fingers around it. Then the phone app pops up with a call and Niall scrambles to press the green button.

“We have to redo the seating arrangement.”

Niall tips his head back against the wall and groans. “What’s wrong with it?”

First it was the white tablecloths (“Cream would be so much more flattering in pictures,”) then they had to add a vegetarian option to the buffet (“What are we going to feed the people more socially conscious than we are, Niall? Proof that we’re worse human beings than they are?” to which Niall had responded, “Sure, fine by me,”) and apparently, now it’s the seating chart.

Harry takes a deep breath. “After you fell asleep last night Lou texted me saying she and Tom are off again and that she can’t sit next to him at our reception dinner.”

“So?” Niall asks. “They’ll probably be back together by the wedding.”

Harry squawks. “The wedding is tomorrow, Niall!”

“Is this why you wouldn’t let me use your laptop to check the score this morning?” Niall asks. “Harry.” The clerk calls his name and Niall raises his hand, gesturing to his phone and shrugging apologetically. She just nods and smiles, waving for him to follow. She stops at a doorway and Niall goes in, settles on the rolling chair rather than the stool behind the optometrist’s eyeball measuring machine, or whatever it’s called.

Niall tunes back in to Harry huffing. “Niall,” he drawls. “the seating chart?”

“Do I have to bite? Can’t we just, like. Put a pin in it? I’m at the optometrist’s, Haz, I’ve got to get my eyes done like you told me to. And then we can shag later, right?” At least, that was the deal when Harry kicked Niall out of the house this morning.

Harry squawks. “This is no time for a doctor’s appointment, Niall!”

“God, never mind, okay. The seating chart?”

Harry sounds like he’s reading from his messages when he answers, “‘Tom’s a skeeving bastard,’ Niall. ‘I can’t sit next to him I won’t I adore you but no.’ She adores me, isn’t that sweet? But last time we moved everyone around for Paul, and that took _ages_ – ”

The optometrist knocks just once with his bony, arthritic knuckle before he lets himself in. Niall has to squint to read his nametag. It looks like it says “Dr. Barnum.” Niall holds his phone to his chest and says quickly, “My fiancé would probably literally disown me if I hung up on him now, would you mind if – ”

Dr. Barnum laughs, plucking his glasses from the front pocket of his white coat. “Not at all,” he says, so Niall taps the speaker button and slides his phone into the front pocket of his shirt. The doctor moves to take Niall’s seat, so Niall sits in front of the giant tower viewer-looking thing.

Harry’s voice comes out loud and clear in the optometrist’s office. “- just don’t think that ‘I might punch him’ is, like, the right foot to start out on, y’know? Niall?”

“I’m here,” Niall says, pressing his face to the cool metal eyeball thing.

“One or two?” the doctor asks. He flips between two lenses, letting Niall decide which one’s best fit. Niall squints. He’s never sure, honestly. He just picks the number he likes best, or guesses, or something. His eyes aren’t that bad, glasses just make reading easier.

Niall blinks. “Uh, two.”

Dr. Barnum nods. “Two or three?”

Niall tries to concentrate. Two and three look pretty much identical, he’s almost sure. Don’t they? “Three,” Niall says, just to get this over and done with.

“Am I on speaker?” Harry asks. “Who’s that with you?”

The doctor leans forward. “Hello, I’m Dr. Barnum.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Harry,” Harry says. “I hope I’m not distracting you?”

“No, I quite like it,” Dr. Barnum smiles.

“Lovely,” Harry decides. “He’s lovely, is he, Niall? Dr. Barnum, would you – ”

Niall cuts him off. “No! No, sorry, doctor, nothing personal. Just, we’ve already got the mailman and the butcher at the deli and the neighbor at the corner with the nice tulips coming. Haz, we can’t invite the whole world to our wedding. Sorry.”

He can picture Harry’s pout. “Anyway, obviously the whole thing’s ruined,” Harry sighs. “We should just call the whole wedding off.”

 “Okay,” Niall agrees easily.

Harry splutters. “What?”

“No, not like – I meant, like, why not? I’ll call the florist and the caterer, you can call our friends and family. We may have to pretend to break up, so no one’s feelings are hurt. We haven’t snuck around for ages, it might even be fun,” Niall suggests.

He can hear the smile in Harry’s voice. “Niall.”

Dr. Barnum waves for Niall to stand up, so he follows him over to the hard chair in the corner of the room and waits for the doctor to sort out his equipment.

“It was worth a shot,” Niall sighs.

“Why’d we even agree to the whole wedding thing? We could’ve slipped off to somewhere warm, gotten the bloke at the courthouse to do the ceremony. I wouldn’t have to wear a tie,” Harry laments. Niall gives him shit for it, but he also knows how hard Harry’s worked on this. Suddenly he feels bad for watching the match over Harry’s shoulder while he quite earnestly asked Niall which shade of white he preferred.

Niall licks his lips. “Would you really? Just me and you?”

“Just me and you,” Harry repeats, making it sound like he’s recounting a dream.

Grimacing, the doctor holds up the thing to Niall’s eyes and blows that fucking blast of air into his eye, fucking shit hell, that always makes him want to crawl out of his skin, it’s so uncomfortable. His eyes immediately start watering. “Fucking hell,” Niall scowls. “Sorry,” he adds, blinking hard.

“Are you crying?” Harry asks disbelievingly.

“No!” Dr. Barnum pulls out his gigantic magnifying glass thing and stares into Niall’s blown-out pupils.

“It sounds like you’re crying,” Harry observes.

“I’m not crying,” Niall insists. “Go back to obsessing over the seating chart.”

Harry groans, “Fine. Don’t forget to pick up something for dinner on the way home. Love you.”

“Love you too,” Niall mumbles, shading his eyes from the overhead lights.

“Later, gator,” Harry hangs up.

The optometrist gives Niall some eyedrops and plops back down on his stool to write Niall’s new prescription. “You know, the courthouse doesn’t close until six.”

Niall watches him speculatively. When the doctor meets his eyes over the rim of his glasses, Niall smiles wide. “Yeah?”

Dr. Barnum shrugs. “Just in case you were wondering.”

Niall checks the clock. It’s already four-fifteen, so if Niall wants to pull something together, he better do it quick. “Doc,” Niall starts, “I don’t suppose you’d want to do me a favor?”

Dr. Barnum smiles back.

When Harry arrives at the florist’s, his hair in disarray, a stray sticky-note with one of their guests’ names stuck to his shirt, Niall’s waiting outside. “Niall,” Harry sighs when he sees him. “Who the fuck orders 1989 yellow roses? Are you sure they’re completely out of stock?”

“Nah, that’s fine,” Niall says. “They’ll deliver them in the morning.”

“What?” Harry asks, looking lost. He presses his hand over his heart, his forehead and upper lip a little damp with sweat. He looks a mess, and Niall’s so, so happy to see him. “Everything’s fine?”

“Yeah, no, Mr. Barnum called pretending to be the florist so you’d come down.”

Harry looks as perplexed as Niall has ever seen him. He clocks the bouquet of wildflowers Niall’s got in his hand, and the nervous smile on his lips, and he looks a little wary. He looks a little excited. “What exactly is going on, here?”

Niall goes down on his good knee, his bad leg creaking unhappily. “Harry,” he takes a deep breath to steady himself, “will you marry me?”  

“I’ve already –” Harry laughs wetly, “we’re getting married tomorrow, you idiot. Did the eye doctor give you some funny medicine, Nialler?”

“No, I mean – today. Right now.” He nods toward the courthouse just up the street, where Dr. Barnum’s sat on a highly polished wooden bench, waiting to be their witness. Niall hopes. “Like, without all the rest of it, tablecloths and guests fightin’ each other and buffet options. Will you marry me?”

Harry’s smiling almost too hard to talk. “I mean, duh,” Harry says, helping Niall climb back to his feet.

“Just me and you?” Niall checks.

“Just us,” Harry confirms. The way he says it, it sounds like a dream.


	48. everything happens eventually

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an au. “In the vastness of space and the immensity of time, it is my joy to share a planet and an epoch with Annie," wrote Carl Sagan. harry's beginning to understand.

“Okay,” Harry reluctantly admits, turning the map in his hands. “I think we’re lost.”

Niall spits out a sunflower seed shell, pops another into his mouth, and says around it, “Might be because you’re holding the map outside down, Haz.”

“Well, why don’t they put a sun on the damn thing, or something? How’m I meant to know which way is up?”

Niall smiles. “Usually you’d use a compass.”

Harry stops half-heartedly trying to fold the map back up along its seams. “How long were you going to let me fuck about with that, then?”

Niall just grins. He’s got his arms crossed over his stomach, the blond hair on his arms and the white of his t-shirt almost blinding in the growing twilight. As much as he talks about life on other planets, sometimes he looks a little out of this world himself. “What d’you say to dinner?” he asks, nodding his head up the road to a little barbecue restaurant with a neon sign out front. It hasn’t got a name, it’s just “Bar-b-q” all lit up in red, which Harry supposes is descriptive enough.

“Ooh, sure,” Harry agrees. Harry reaches through the window and shoves the map back into the glove box, crumpling it up around the edges. Niall pushes himself off from where he’s been leant against the car, and they set off across the two-lane highway and up the driveway to the BBQ joint. It’s one of those places with the trays you slide along and load up as you go, so Harry piles his chopped beef sandwich and chips on top of Niall’s meatloaf.

“We should’ve had broccoli or something,” Harry laments at their table. Niall quickly sets each individual plate on the barbecue sauce-stained wooden table and leaves the tray on top of the trash can for an employee to pick up. The sky is almost violet this far out in the country, although he can see the glare from city lights not far to his right. Maybe a hundred miles. Maybe fifty. It’s hard to tell, when the land’s this flat.

The world takes on unreal color during the blue hour, which is what his mum had called this time of day when he was just a boy. She’d always call him home around this time, just before it got proper dark, and he’d thought of it as a race. Go to Anne. Get home safe. Something like that. Even the grass, which he knows is actually something like a lime green, looks supersaturated and soft. They’ve landed in worse podunk towns.

Niall rolls his eyes at Harry, whose cheeks bulge ridiculously with the amount of sandwich he’s bitten into. A spot of barbecue sauce dribbles down the front of his shirt, the “Eagles 75” print so faded now that probably only Harry and Niall would know it was there. “You’ve already got us on those nasty horse pill vitamins, Haz, I think we’ll be fine.”

Harry shrugs. “Never hurts to be safe.” He watches Niall’s eyes jump from the pimple-faced boy behind the counter to the two other patrons in this restaurant, a couple in their late forties or fifties. They’re a little overweight, and they don’t look very happy, but Harry knows that’s not quite what Niall’s cataloguing about them. Niall’s eyes naturally slide over to the window, where the open sky stretches out as far as the eye can see on the other side of the highway. It’s nothing but fields from here to their next stop, Harry thinks, they’re so far out of the way. It’s like it’s gravity, the way Niall looks up.

“It’s beautiful,” Harry offers. He can see more of this little wooden restaurant built out of what was probably a hardware store and before that, maybe a general store in the reflection from the window. The angry couple, and the teenager, and Niall, and himself, soft-faced and younger-looking than he expects, especially since his face stubbornly refuses to grow a mustache or a beard.

Niall shakes his head. “It’s _so_ much more than that. It’s _everything_. It’s the future. It’s alive.”

“Go on, then,” Harry says. He leans back in his chair and wads his napkin up. Harry drops it on his plate and folds his arms across his chest, grinning. “Tell me about it.”

Niall narrows his eyes. “No, thanks, I’m not falling for that one.”

Harry starts to smile. “What?”

“Oh, no, Mr. Skeptic, don’t turn this back around on me. You’re going to go all psychologist on me and give me shit about projection and human nature. We must’ve had this conversation ten times by now,” Niall laughs, pushing his chair away from the table. Harry follows hurriedly, stumbling a bit over his chair as he stands up. Niall reaches out to steady him, his hand firm and warm even through Harry’s coat. Maybe this time Niall will kiss him, Harry thinks. “Good?” he simply asks. Harry nods.

They paid before they sat down – well, really, Harry paid, because that’s what the corporate credit card is for – so they walk out into a deep summer evening. Harry adds it to his mental list of places he’ll probably only ever be once in his life. It’s not a very good list; he’s not got a very good memory. He might remember this one, though, he thinks: the angry-faced couple, and the smell of wood smoke and barbecue and sawdust. He hopes he will.

Niall crosses the soft thick grass in front of the restaurant and the highway, but he doesn’t stop at the car. Harry just trails after him, listening to the cicadas chirp as night settles in. Somewhere in the distance, a coyote howls. It’s not an unpleasant sound, actually. Niall vaults over a barbed wire fence, and he stops and helps Harry slip between two rows of the rusted metal wires. Harry comes up smiling. “Told ya all that yoga would come in handy, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, sure. You know, for the next time someone stops chasing you to help you through,” Niall snorts, brushing cockleburs off of Harry’s coat. Niall and Harry wander further out over the fields. It’s rough land, but it was probably farmland once, because it’s flat, without trees or major vegetation, just that lush green grass. It’s probably rained a lot around here recently.

Niall flops onto his back, stretching out on the grass, so Harry follows suit. The grass is cool even through his coat, but it smells rich and vibrant and healthy and very real, and Niall’s there beside him, his chest rising and falling steadily. Niall lets out a deep sigh. “Okay,” he says. “But you go first this time. I always go first, and you always have so much more to use against me.”

“Use against you!” Harry snorts. “I’m not against you, Niall.”

Niall turns his head to look at him, the blond hair at the top of his head catching a bit on the grass. Harry wants to slide his palm under the back of Niall’s head, where his dark hair’s so short. “You’re not?”

“No,” Harry breathes out. “However,” he starts, smiling, “I do think it’s human nature to want to believe that there’s something else alive out there. It’s projection, right? Or, maybe it’s something else.”

Niall raises his eyebrow, because Harry’s never admitted that much before. It’s just something he read recently, an article in Time Magazine while he was sat on the loo in some convenience store between stops on this road trip that’s become his life. Niall tilts his head for Harry to go on, so Harry clears his throat.

“It’s like, maybe this thing with you, and space, it’s a Voyager mission.”

No gleam of recognition crosses Niall’s eyes, so Harry explains, “Back in the ‘70s, the space program built these probes, right? Wanker,” Harry rolls his eyes when Niall scoffs, elbowing him in the side. “They were Voyager I and Voyager II, and each of them carried these, like, records. I mean, you know, like you’d play on a record player. But they had on them little bits of music and pictures and sounds, y’know, a mum talking to her baby, a kiss, whales singing. A message from us to anyone or anything alive out there of, like, humanity.”

Niall’s eyes are shining. “Earth, you mean. That’s Earth.”

“Yeah, but it’s more than that,” Harry says, “cuz also on this record, there was Annie Druyan.”

“Annie Druyan?” Niall repeats. He’s propped himself up on his elbow to look down at Harry now, and Harry takes note of the slope of his nose – a little uneven – and how it leads into his top lip, soft and curving and familiar.

Harry nods. “Yeah, she was – you know Carl Sagan, the ‘70s version of Neil deGrasse Tyson? She worked with him on this project, compiling this little record of humanity, deciding what went in and what didn’t. And part of it was, they hooked her up to an EEG to monitor her brain activity. And they asked her to think of what it meant to be human, and all this work she’d been doing for these months, so they could put it on the Voyager. Only, she wasn’t thinking of that. She was thinking of Carl, whom she’d fallen in love with. So that’s out there somewhere, maybe forever, drifting through space. Where ‘humanity’ should be on the record, there’s Annie loving Carl.”

Niall lets out a soft little sigh. His face is so soft, at ease, for once. “You are a proper sap, Harry Styles.”

Harry just laughs. “Never said I wasn’t.”

Niall flops back onto his back, so Harry folds his hands on his stomach, looking up at the stars. “It’s more than that, though,” Niall says. “Like, it’s more than humanity becoming more human. It’s…okay. So, like, we can think of space and time as rolling out like a wave from the Big Bang, right? Like, it all unfolds from that moment. Does that track?”

He nods.

“Okay,” Niall says. “You had, what, a sandwich for dinner, right?” Harry nods again. “You had other options, though. Like, meatloaf, like me, or brisket or something. What happens to the wave, d’you think? When it racks up possibilities like that, what do you think happens to the wave?”

Harry frowns. “It keeps rolling, right? I mean, here we are.”

“Here we are,” Niall agrees. “But what about that option you didn’t take, the meatloaf you didn’t eat?”

“Uh, it didn’t happen?” Harry guesses.

“Not in this universe,” Niall agrees. “In another one, yeah. The wave keeps rolling, moving around obstacles like ‘this or that.’ Instead it branches off, bending around it. See, there’s no reason to believe that the universe or time are finite. ‘Cept that we can’t really grapple with infinity, y’know?”

Uh, yeah. That Harry gets.

“But statistically,” Niall says, “this means that there’s a tiny little probability of everything happening. And that, likely enough, in one universe or another, it is. That’s one interpretation, anyway. But why shouldn’t it be true? If infinity is real, then everything happens eventually.”

His face is so close, and his eyes are so blue. Harry thinks Niall might kiss him this time.

Niall licks his lips and closes his eyes for a second, and when he opens them again, he gives Harry a little smile. He folds an arm under his head. His breathing’s picked up a little bit but it slows again now, as he calms down.

Harry still wants to, like. Touch him, somehow, if only just to make himself feel better. Niall turns to look at him like he can hear Harry thinking, and he grins. “Can you imagine? What infinities there are up there,” he says, nodding his head at the sky. “Maybe in some universe you and I are enemies,” he jokes, wrinkling his nose at Harry.

Harry scoffs. “Yeah. Maybe in another one we don’t even know each other.”

“Nah,” Niall shakes his head. “I bet we’d know each other.”

Everything happens eventually, Harry thinks, studying Niall’s profile in the dark. Maybe in one of those infinities Niall kisses him.


End file.
